A survey of over 63,700 US undergraduate and 9,250 graduate students over the course of three years (2002-2005) conducted by Donald McCabe, Rutgers University, revealed the following:
Admit to: | Undergraduate | Graduate |
Paraphrasing/copying few sentences from Internet source without footnoting | 36% | 24% |
Paraphrasing/copying few sentences from written source without footnoting it | 38% | 25% |
Fabricating/falsifying a bibliography | 14% | 7% |
Copying materials almost word for word from a written source without citation | 7% | 4% |
Turning in work done by another | 7% | 3% |
Obtaining paper from term paper mill | 3% | 2% |
More than 23,000 high school students across the U.S. participated in the 2012 Josephson Institute of Ethics survey. It indicated 32%, or nearly a third, of students admitted to copying sources from the Internet for school assignment.
Skip to the 1:00 mark to learn about famous cases of plagiarism.