The Society for Politics, Economics and the Law hosted a lecture by economics professor Steve Margolis to discuss the growing issues of plagiarism and copyright. “Plagiarism is literary fraud, representing work as your own,” said Margolis, a co-director for SPEL. “Property rights are central to economics. The issues involved with plagiarism fall under the same set of ideas.”
Margolis said he addressed freshman Park scholars earlier this semester on plagiarism earlier this semester using Richard Posner’s The Little Book of Plagiarism, which he also used Tuesday.
The seminar is especially relevant as reports of cheating at N.C. State have been going up recently, according to Director of the Office of Student Conduct Paul Cousins. “The growing trend we are seeing is the use of electronic media by students to cut and paste material,” Cousins said. Student Conduct’s Web site displays a list of Web sites used by students when writing papers, as well as a list of Web sites to aid faculty in the identification of instances of cheating. Margolis said he believes the ease in accessing and copying materials with the Internet has lead people to believe it’s easy to copy and paste with impunity. “We’re seeing a weakening of the moral disposition people have against plagiarism,” Margolis said. Even though Cousins said the office is seeing more reports of violations, he said, as a whole, many instances go underreported. “Most recent research suggests 50 to 75 percent of college students are involved in cheating. We aren’t seeing comparative numbers here at State,” Cousins said. The code of student conduct offers a number of different repercussions for students involved in cheating, ranging from suspensions or expulsion for repeat offenders to losing credit on the specific assignment. In all instances, the student is placed on academic probation.