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Bridgeport International Academy, Connecticut, USA
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Bridgeport International Academy, Connecticut, USA
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Description
Bridgeport International Academy (BIA) is a private, nonsectarian, college preparatory, boarding, and day high school with an international student body and faculty. Located adjacent to the seaside campus of the University of Bridgeport, the Academy offers a strong college preparatory curriculum for grades 9 through 12, with the opportunity for students to take college courses and use university facilities. The four pillars that form BIA’s identity, mission, values, and climate are academic excellence, creativity, character development, and global citizenship. BIA is a small, selective school. Admission is competitive with entrance examinations, multiple recommendations, and demonstration of solid academic performance among the application components.

Here, we explore how a plagiarism detector can help raise awareness and educate students about the importance of originality in an international environment with learners from various backgrounds.

Challenge

BIA has a diverse, coed student body, with students from throughout the world, various states in the United States, and the Bridgeport, CT area. In any given year, between one-third and 45% of the student body attends from nations outside the US. In the past five years, students from 22 countries in Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, Central America, the Middle East, and South America have attended BIA. Considering the various backgrounds of the students, teachers faced the challenge of explaining the importance of originality and introducing the concept of plagiarism to them.

“BIA draws students from throughout the world. Our experience has been that many international students do not have a good foundation in terms of understanding the concept of plagiarism and proper citation. BIA teachers and administrators would spend considerable time teaching those concepts but lacked a good platform for identifying incidents of plagiarism,” shared Frank LaGrotteria, the school Headmaster.

Solution

PlagiarismCheck.org has become a platform for detecting plagiarism for BIA teachers and students.

“Plagiarismcheck.org has proved to be invaluable for educating the students about this serious academic offense and preparing them for college,” says the Headmaster.

As a result of the tool’s implementation, BIA students can check for plagiarism and work on their mistakes even before the assignment submission, educating themselves on the importance of originality. According to the Headmaster, “The site is very intuitive and my students have been using it to check their own work as well as making citations!”

On the other hand, teachers can easily catch cases of plagiarism, saving time in checking the students’ work.

Another helpful feature LaGrotteria mentions is the Citation Generator. “Students can utilize the various citation methods available in Plagiarismcheck.org to submit citations according to each teacher’s preferred format,” explains the Headmaster.

“These days, many free citation pages have lots of other ads and terms to use it for free. That’s why I recommend using Plagiarismcheck.org: students just add in the website link (most popular), and the citation is created automatically. They can also choose from a variety of citation styles. It enables students to make citations from websites, books, articles, etc. A great resource and is connected right to your email, very convenient!!”

Another crucial factor in choosing the tool for BIA was the financial side of the problem. “As a small school, budget concerns are paramount. Plagiarismcheck.org fits well within our budget, providing a needed service that is affordable,” shares LaGrotteria.

Overall, the BIA teachers and Headmaster are “delighted” with Plagiarismcheck.org and conclude that the tool has become “an integral part“ of their curriculum.

Frank LaGrotteria
Frank LaGrotteria
Headmaster