Would the Hulk plagiarize?

When I first started teaching I was surprised to find that about a third of my students would turn in papers containing quotations without citation - not in APA style as directed, not in MLA style (staunch English major?), or not even in some LMAO style (just making it up as you go along).  Nothing.  Not even a quotation mark.

When I informed them that this is plagiarism, they were shocked!  They knew that they had been a little lazy or careless but they didn't realize that this is a form of cheating.  From then on, I have emphasized APA style in-text citation as a main goal of my upper level courses. And I believe that in this week's meme I have found an ally in my citation obsession:

Click here for a more modern image of the Hulk keeping it real with his citation of sources.

Apparently Marvel's anti-hero, the Incredible Hulk, has read the APA's Publication Manual.  He may have a habit of breaking things and poor anger management but he does not plagiarize!  The Hulk also understands that if you want to strengthen your ideas, citing good sources is a great way to be convincing.

So if my students were plagiarizing by accident and the Hulk always cites his sources, who plagiarizes on purpose?  In 2010, Williams, Nathanson, and Paulhus conducted three related studies to answer this question (and that raise some questions about the Hulk part!).

In the first study, they wanted to know what type of person has a history of cheating.  Out of the 249 college students who completed their questionnaire, 73% admitted to cheating at some point in high school.  The questionnaire also included items that tapped into their personalities and dispositions: Williams et al. found that students who admitted to cheating were more likely to score high on a measure of psychopathy.  Now, to be clear, this does not mean that those students are actual psychopaths, instead it means that they were slightly more likely to demonstrate traits like, "...erratic lifestyle[s], manipulation, callousness, and antisocial tendencies" (p. 295).

To get a clearer picture of college students' current behavior the authors conducted a second study.  This time 107 students completed personality tests, general ability tests, and wrote two essays for their college psychology class.  Included in the assignment directions were clear instructions for citing quotations in APA style, a definition of plagiarism, and a warning that the essays would be screened by Turn-It-In.  Turn-It-In uses an algorithm to compare submitted papers to web pages, books, and a bank of student papers: if a student plagiarizes a source, the paper will get flagged.  Using this method, Williams et al. found about 15% of the students plagiarized on at least one of their essays.  The students who plagiarized scored higher on psychopathy or lower on verbal ability.  This suggests that some students cheat out of a devious mindset, but others may cheat because their writing skills are particularly poor.

In the final study, 223 college students reported their cheating histories, completed personality tests, and answered questions designed to reveal the factors that led them to cheat or to avoid cheating.  For the third time, high scores on psychopathy were related to cheating.  These students also revealed that they were motivated to cheat because a) they will do anything to get good grades and b) they do not believe that it is immoral to cheat.

Thus, the majority of students who do plagiarize are likely to hold attitudes and values are different from most of their peers'.  A small subset of students may use plagiarism to make up for their lack of writing ability.  What stands out to me as a teacher is that the most college students do not fit these criteria and would be unlikely to plagiarize.

Ironically, from Williams et al.'s results, we can question this week's meme.  The Hulk has unpredictable behavior, isn't particularly careful with others' feelings, and engages in some "antisocial" acts (like throwing cars at people).  The Hulk also demonstrates very low verbal skills: he mostly grunts and yells; and speaks like Cookie Monster on steroids.  (If you need evidence of these claims, check out this Hulk clip.).  We would associate these factors with a higher risk of plagiarism!

So always cite your sources in APA style if you want to be credible, but if the Hulk gets a higher grade than you do, you should be a bit incredulous!

Further Reading:

You can access a pdf of the Williams et. al (2010) paper on Craig Nathanson's Mendeley page.  You can also obtain a copy of the published article through your local college library.

A tutorial on the basics of APA style and good hints about in-text citation of quotations from the APA.  Don't risk plagiarism!

An NPR broadcast about Turn-It-In that raises some interesting questions about its use.

The history of the Incredible Hulk from Marvel.