Instilling Ethical Writing Habits

Instilling ethical writing habits in students is one of the most daunting tasks facing teachers today. With mounting classroom sizes and increasing expectations from parents and administration, there is often little time or energy left to devote to teaching subjects such as plagiarism awareness, proper quotation and citation skills not to mention delving into even deeper nuances within the field. These deeper topics, such as different citation styles and understanding when using which style would be most appropriate, is often just out of the question.

Although it can be tough, most educators and administrators reading this would agree that there is significant work to be done to improve the way ethics in writing is taught. Arguably one of

After reading a brief article, teachers could query their students for what lines from the text would require a quotation.

Discuss thoroughly why specific lines are to be quoted directly and how to cite. Questions could include: what would be lost if it was paraphrased or summarized instead of quoted? Why is using the exact words of the author important here? How do we know we can trust this line of information?

Additionally, the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing should be instructed directly. Again, discuss with students the criteria for both and how/when they apply.

If students understand quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing as "business as usual" within a classroom, ethical writing practices could improve.

3. Bell-ringers/Exit Slips The practice of having students answer a few questions for review or practice at either the start or end of class is a common practice. These are often called bell-ringers/openers/do-nows or exit slips/tickets. It can establish the tone of learning as well as check for understanding. Imagine if this time was used for practicing or reviewing both content and ethical writing practices which would, idiomatically-speaking, kill two birds with one

Why?

Why can a reader trust the information about [topic]?

Summarize and cite paragraph 4 from the text.

4. Check for Plagiarism Without enforcement, there is no law. This applies from the rules of a classroom to the professional world. One way to ensure that students are not only understanding of the practices of ethical writing, but also willing to apply these concepts to their writing is through a plagiarism checker.

A quick and easy lesson to use with students is where you demonstrate what NOT to do. For one lesson only, you model a piece of writing, but instead of citing, you plagiarize or steal material. Next, show students how this will be caught by running it through a plagiarism checker. After all, if they know that their work will be analyzed for plagiarism through an effective filter, it will keep the citation practices applicable. Resource: https://www.quetext.com/ This free plagiarism checker uses an algorithm to detect statistically similar material. The uploaded information is checked against over 35 billion webpages, 1 million academic journal papers, and over 20 million books, songs, and