Plagiarism and similarity in class. Why does it matter?

In my second year of teaching, in one of my classes, I found that several of my students had plagiarized several of their assignments. When it first happened, I was a little bit conflicted, as when confronted, the students often said that they did not plagiarize any work: it was simply a similar work.

Usually, this can be countered by showing the referenced work, but stubborn students often insist that they haven’t seen that particular work and that all similarities are coincidental. This gets tricky as the student has no concrete proof that they initially produced their work. However, I also don’t have any evidence that the student did plagiarize.

Plagiarism is taking credit for another people’s work. This includes the work itself or the idea behind the work. Basically, for me, plagiarism is stealing.

Now, telling students about plagiarism is easy; however, identifying and ‘proving’ that a student is plagiarizing something is not easy. The discussion gets messy when students claim that their work coincidentally is similar to another one.

However, as several cases occurred, I found another perspective I will share in this writing. The premise is simple, while plagiarism cannot be proved, similarity can be described. Therefore, rather than insisting that a student is wrong because they had plagiarized another work, I now tell the students that their mistake has similar work with another work.

Having a similar work, whether coincidental or not, is never good when we are asked to produce original work. If plagiarism is stealing, then having a similar work indicates laziness. Suppose a student in the class has identical work. In that case, I tell them they are lazy in studying or looking at design references, lazy in exploring designs, and lazy in discussing their design work with lecturers.

When designing, designers sometimes need to look for inspiration or references on solutions similar to the problem they are working on now. A designer that works for a resort logo may need to see what a resort logo looks like. A designer working on packaging design may need to see how different brands package their products. So when a student unintentionally has a similar design to another well-published or established design, the student is at fault as they did not look up references and came up with a strikingly close design.

Designers may also need to explore options for their design solutions. They may create design alternatives or even iterations to make the final design as polished and unique as possible. So when their design is similar to another design, the students are probably lazy to explore: they are lazy to think of different or alternative solutions or even modify their reference (if they are inspired by another design).

Design students often made designs for the sake of a class project. The class is most likely supervised by lecturers who act as their clients and supervisors. As most lecturers are older than their students, we can assume that most lecturers have more experience than most students. Because lecturers have more experience than their students, they would have seen more designs than their students. Therefore, if the student had been active or consistently discussing their design with the lecturer, there is a great chance that if their work is similar to another design, the lecturer would be able to tell them. At least while the design is still in progress, changes are still possible. However, a similar design is not a good thing to have when the students have already submitted their work.

There is an old saying that there is nothing new under the sun. While not all designs are 100% original, it does not justify having a similar design with another, especially when the designer is still learning as a student.

So students, please don’t be lazy.