iParadigms, creator of Turnitin, has announced the results of a new plagiarism study which shows that secondary school students in the United States rely more heavily on social networks for content in their papers and less on cheat sites and paper mills compared to college students.

To see the findings in an infographic format, visit  https://turnitin.com/static/results/plagiarism_report.php. To read an in-depth analysis of the findings, download the free white paper at http://pages.turnitin.com/PlagiarismSECvsHE.html

The Turnitin study follows a recent report by the Pew Research Center that shows growing concern among college presidents about the issue of plagiarism. Of the 1,055 presidents surveyed, 55 percent believe that plagiarism is increasing in their institutions while just two percent believe it is decreasing. 

The new Turnitin study examined 128 million content matches from 33 million student papers that were submitted to Turnitin between June 2010 and June 2011. The study uncovered the most popular categories of content used in student papers.

Web Sites                               Secondary                  Higher                        Difference

Social & Content-Sharing       31.1%                        26.1%              5%

Homework & Academic         22.3%                          22.0%              0.3%

Cheat Sites & Paper Mills       14.1%                         19.6%              -5.5%

News & Portals                       12.3%                        16.6%              -4.3%

Encyclopedia                          11.2%                        12.4%              -1.2%

Other                                       9.0%                         3.2%                5.8%

Wikipedia remained the most popular source for both secondary and higher education. Eight sites appear on the top ten list of both secondary and higher education.

Secondary                                          Higher Ed

1          Wikipedia                 7.99%              Wikipedia                             10.74%

2          Yahoo Answers          7.55%             Yahoo Answers                         3.90%

3          Answers.com             3.37%             Slideshare                                3.87%

4          eNotes                      2.90%             Answers.com                          57%

5          Slideshare                 2.38%             Oppapers.com                          3.11%

6          Scribd                       2.38%             Coursehero                               3.01%

7          Oppapers                  1.93%             Scribd                                       2.95%

8          Amazon                     1.85%             Justanswer.com                         1.60%

9          Essaymania                1.83%             eNotes                                     1.58%

10        123helpme                 1.71%             Amazon                                    1.21%

For more information on how to engage students during the writing process and reduce the use of unoriginal content or improper citation in student writing, visit www.turnitin.com.

Source: iParadigms, www.iparadigms.com