Plagiarism, Academic Norms and the Governance of the Profession

Few would dissent from the view that plagiarism is an academic crime of the worst sort. Attention to the issue has been heightened recently by the growth of websites supplying ‘off the peg’ or customised research papers. This article argues that the definition and detection of plagiarism involves several complexities and that the resolution of the problem depends less on the development of coercive instruments to deal with the ‘crime’ than on the development of norms that emerge through reflective pedagogy and processes of academic socialisation.