During her 12 years of teaching journalism courses at Iowa State, associate professor Barbara Mack has seen roughly seven papers turned into her that she had previously graded.

In one incident in her Journalism 101 class, two men with the same address in the phone book turned in the same report. Two years ago, Mack asked a student to leave her class after recognizing that the student’s media law paper was actually her roommate’s from the previous year.

As the end of the semester draws to a close, professors such as Mack are on the lookout for plagiarized papers, and they warn students against choosing a quick fix for their end-of-the-year assignments.

With the emotional stress that college can inflict on some students, Mack said she can understand why some students resort to plagiarizing — although she said she hopes they wouldn’t succumb to the pressure.

“Some students get lazy; some students procrastinate,” Mack said. “Others are working 45 hours a week and taking a full load of classes. They get in trouble, get scared and look for an easy way out.”

With the increased technology of the Internet, plagiarism may becoming more tempting, Mack said.

Plagiarism also tends to increase at the end of the term, said Joseph Taylor, assistant professor of history, who has seen six cases of plagiarism during the past three years.

“[It] always happens in conjunction with the term papers, which are due at the end of the term,” he said.

Although several cases do occur each year, the professors said they don’t see an enormous number of plagiarism cases in their classrooms.

“I don’t see it as a huge overwhelming problem,” Mack said. “I don’t see Iowa State as a university of cheaters.”

But to deter any cheating that students may be planning, some professors choose nontraditional assignments and case studies for students to do. Mack, for one, doesn’t allow her media law students to choose topics for their papers anymore, as it may be too easy to pull them off the Internet.

“I consciously make assignments where it’s hard to cheat,” she said. “A lot of professors do.”

In some cases, plagiarism isn’t intentional, as some students are unsure or uneducated about how to properly cite their work, said Kathleen MacKay, dean of students.

“Some people do it accidentally; others are confused about [how to cite]. Other just need to be more careful,” she said.

Because of their complexity, plagiarism cases are handled on an individual basis, MacKay said.

Howard Shapiro, vice provost for Undergraduate Programs, said plagiarism is something that cannot be tolerated.

“It is illegal and unethical in the university and in the workplace,” he said. “There is no place for it at any level.”

Taylor agreed that students who plagiarize aren’t helping their grades, they’re hurting themselves.

“Higher education is about the education process, and students who short circuit that and think only of grades are depriving themselves of the experience,” he said.