When dumb and crooked are intertwined

Point of preference. I prefer the less crooked varietals of plagiarism to be described as lazy rather than dumb. Dumb implies a level of acceptable innocence, whereas lazy does not. However....

The problem with plagiarism in the Internet age is that, ironically, more care and attention by student needs to be taken to ensure proper citation. It's harder to do research when you have endless streams online data and information coming from unknown or uncertain prior sources. Unlike in the old days when Crawford and I spent hours in the university library researching the book stacks for exact sources, online sources are far more unreliable, often of dubious origin. You have situations now in which there are sometimes layers upon layers of plagiarism; a source may have already gone through several plagiarists by the time student finds it on some obscure web site or blog. Citing a plagiarized source is just as wrong as the original plagiarism itself.

This is preventable with a bit of work.

If I were a teacher today, I would flat-out disallow any and all Wikipedia citations, unless the paper's subject matter was Wikipedia. This single edict would admittedly send Generation-Y into a downward spiral of research confusion and panic, but it would begin to address the lazy type of plagiarism so common among kids raised in this online medium.

an issue in visual arts, too

Unfortunately, in this cut and paste society, plagiarism is a problem for visual artists. But it isn't always non-artists who don't understand copyright; sometimes other visual artists are the pirates.

In every one of eight copyright workshops that Martha Rans of Artists' Legal Outreach (http://artistslegaloutreach.ca/) led for CARFAC BC in various parts of BC this spring, participants shared stories of other artists using their work or the work of others without permission. Sometimes they were cases of outright infringement; other times, the rip-offs weere not as thorough, but involved significant "borrowing" without attribution nonetheless.

If artists want respect and fair dealing from the public, we may first need to raise the standards of ethics, collegiality, and solidarity in our own community. Plus we need to be more organized, e.g. by joining CARFAC BC http://www.carfacbc.org/ ;-)

Turnitin

I have a real problem with universities using systems like Turnitin because as they preach against plagiarism they promote copyright infringement. Turnitin, according to its website, has a database of over 100 million student papers. A large part of that database comes from papers being submitted to test for plagiarism. In other words, it hasn't paid the creators of those papers to keep a copy of their work on file, and it doesn't have permission to use those papers to make a profit.

Also, the habit to force students to run their essays through Turnitin before handing them to their profs also makes the presumption of guilt, which goes against our legal values. It also prevents students from being able to decide whether or not they want their essay to be used for profit by a company like Turnitin.

Just maybe........................

.................. we should do away with essays and reports altogether and have students do oral reports and tests.

What I see is lazy professors, not teaching and forcing many meaningless essays upon students who have little time to complete a finished product.

In the information age, we should test what a student knows and can explain, rather read some 2,000 to 5,000 words that have been repeated not for terms or years but for decades and decades. Todays education is a breading ground for plagiarism and we are giving degrees to thousands of people who can write a good paper, but know little about they are writing about.

How much is too much?

I have a feeling that sometimes this desire to mark down sources for every bit of information can go too far. The author of the article didn't bother pointing out sources for his definition of plagiarism. He also didn't cite sources for UBC's use of Turnitin, or other information about Turnitin. The list goes on.
Now this isn't word for word plagiarism, but paraphrasing is plagiarism too. It's possible the the author knows latin very well and came up with the definition himself, but most likely he looked up sources before he wrote the article (and a Google search of the sentence does point to that). It's also possible he works at UBC and knows firsthand about UBC's use of Turnitin, but that's not obvious from the way he writes. So how did he get that information? Did he read about it somewhere? Did he lookup Turnitin online? Why aren't those sources made obvious?

Would it make sense for him to start listing all those sources? No, because they are both easily verifiable and it would make for both tedious writing and reading. Human brains are always taking in information and synthesizing it. If we always had to attribute the source of everything we say or write, we'd get nowhere. Attributing sources only makes sense to me when a novel facts are brought into play and the validity of an argument is heavily dependent on the accuracy of those facts. Sometimes a source can also be used to lend weight to an opinion when you don't want to reiterate in detail how you came to an opinion, it can be useful to point a reader to a source who has already dealt with the basis for the opinion in more detail.

writing and plagiarism

I disagree with 'grumpy'--we are not "giving degrees to thousands of people who can write a good paper," and sadly we are not doing much to teach them to write. The problem is less plagiarism as such as it is that colleges and universities do little to address the poor writing skills of those who show up to get in line for their degrees. Most undergraduate writing is, and always will be, derivative in terms of information, but if we insist that students write in their own voices, the problem of where the information comes from can be constructively redefined.

Can I copy this article and give it other students?

What a great article. I would like to share it with other students at my community college. Do I have your permission to do so, or would you prefer that I just e-mail them the URL for the Tyee and your article in particular?

Sharing

Just send them the URL of this article. The Tyee is always glad to welcome more visitors!

Bill_Horne

You've hit upon the solution. Instead of calling them "essays and reports" just call them a collage and be done with it.

I find myself in agreement with grumpy. Far too much weight is being given to plagiarism and not enough to the actual value of the content regarding lessons learned and along with that goes the automatic assumption that the "plagiariser" has not learned anything from the exercise.

Further, the use of search engines should be banned as plagiarism detectors as this is just as much a copy and paste thing as a student might engage in.

FWIW, plagiarism should be encouraged amongst undergrads, at least to say, 20% of anything being written. They might just learn proper form and function much easier if they were allowed to copy directly from the masters.

Certainly there is a level at which no plagiarism should be tolerated but it's a sad world we live in when one has to punch in, to a search engine, what they believe is an original thought of their own to avoid being tagged with some nefarious label by their prof.

A free, but less comprehensive plagarism checker

can be found here: Plagarism Checker

I've read at onetime that all philosophy has been lifted from the works of Plato. I cannot help but wonder, considering this, what sort of ground do we really stand on? ;)

Back in the '60's...

One of the ways I made extra money while attending UBC in the 1960's was to type essays for those who didn't own a typewriter. It was for an odd assortment of students---surprisingly a significant number of engineers who were generally not very proficient at writing essays, to some undergraduates who didn't have the time. I enjoyed doing those, because of the interesting topics, but they also usually had an enormous number of references--which, for those of you who were not familiar with the demands of those days, required all footnotes to be on the same page as the quotation or comment. Today's computers make this an easy process, but for the old typewriters it sometimes required retyping a page until you got it right--with up to 5 pages of carbon paper between 6 sheets. Certainly at that time, a master's dessertation required reading a lot of books, articles and papers without the advantage of Wikipedia or Google. I personally spent a lot of time in the basement carrels of UBCs library and took a lot of pride in getting a decent grade on the many assigned essays in history and poly-sci. Perhaps that is what is lacking in today's "scholars"--pride in doing a good job based on your own merits.
An interesting article, Crawford.

Writing

People always have difficulty avoiding a negative (in this case, avoiding plagiarism): the reasons for participating in the greater academic conversation need to be outlined for students, along with a concentration on how to express an original idea.

"Grumpy's" reasoning is flawed--universty is not a place for training, nor is it a place for knowledge consumption and acquisition. Critical use of reading, experimental findings and other information students and professors (really the same thing at two extremes of a continuum) come into contact with in their daily scholarly lives is what happens at a university. Yes, the idea of finding and regurgitating the right answer is at the root of the problem, and avoiding that process helps void plagiarism.

Journalism is produced for entirely different reasons than writing at universities. It is not part of a larger conversation and does not require the same kind of citation. Journalism should be held to a higher standard of fact checking and editing, however, because it is published work, and readers should be able to expect that sources exist and have been consulted. This is not always the case, but the idea that we need to cite every notion we put down in writing does not recognize the purpose or function of citation.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" does require citation, especially if used in a paper on a subject other than Shakespeare, Elizabethan drama, or Romeo and Juliet itself. Even in those cases, though, the line numbers and edition help the reader, which is the point of the whole exercise, anyway.

If post-secondary needs every warm body it can find

Maybe it should start looking amongst high-school dropouts and ask them why they dropped. The general assumption is that that was because they were too dumb and undisciplined;lined to finish their schooling, but maybe there was something wrong with the schooling, eh? I know a remarkable number of bright young people who didn't finish high school, and who now are a bargain for employers in relatively low-skilled and low-paid jobs. I don't know why we should do further bending over backwards to Asian students if their culture clashes with ours in how they relate to higher education, not to mention integrity. And I would like to know what is meant by 'better recruitment'. I think there are a million things we could all do better in dealing with the next generation, but I don't think this particular item would be all that high on my agenda.

plagiarism

I have never seen undergraduate education as 'practical job training for scholars.' This is something which begins at graduate level. I see teaching Literature as an introduction to a huge field - closely related to history and philosophy, in poarticular - why it matters; what can be learned from it; how to think? - that there are few if any right answers about content, 'messages,' etc.
Neither do I think students generally view post-secondary education as a 'waiting room.' Atleast among English majors, they have chosen to do this because they are interested, not primarily focussed on GPA or careers.
A separate issue is students who do not have English as a first language and may come from different traditions about plagiarism and indeed about knowledge vs. thought.

there are many issues here...

But just to wade in, I will say that the 'right' answer, or at the very least, correct and copious use of 'keywords' (yes, keywords, not key concepts) seemed more important to my professors in the undergraduate degree I just finished. As a writer, I endeavoured to absorb the concepts and write what I knew about them in my own words, and I was repeatedly asked to 'use more keywords'. I think the intent here is not to privilege those who are excellent writers - and that might include those who use English as a second language - so I suppose the question to be answered is do we first, value writing, and second, if we value it, do we teach it to students?

Few would argue that universities operate in a system where those who get the most 'warm bodies' win, and that the institutions that succeed have become masters of marketing. How can you possibly blame the students for responding to the university in the manner that the marketing promotes? If you are aiming to produce 'scholars', one would think that you would advertise to and accept potential scholars...not just any warm body.

I went to university with both a laptop and a smartphone, and an ability to use a real, as well as a virtual library.Google is not the problem in plagiarism: and except for some few, I doubt that laziness is. Indifferent profesors who resent teaching undergrad course:yes. Professors who really did skim, and not read, papers: yes. Professors who were too busy to answer questions: yes. Professors who thought they had nothing to learn from students: yes. And in fairness, professors who taught me things I had never dreamed of and changed my life in the process,although perhaps too few.

The universities ought to be the most important places in our culture; the centers of learning and excellence, not places where rote regurgitated wisdom is dispensed by an often bored, and undoubtedly privileged elite.They have to be valued in order for them to be that, and the students that enter these refined halls of learning have to be valued too.If there is any central problem, I would say this is it.

It is perhaps rather trite, but the best teschers/professors understand that teaching and learning is a reciprocal process, not a one-way stream.

in fairness...

I must also add that my professors are not responsible for the misspelled typos in the above...that is all due to my eargerness to participate in the conversation.

Give people tools, not answers and you'll be surprised what they

can do...

First, samuidave, thanks for that link. Recently I caught a couple of students plagarising and I usually simply use Google, photocopy (and bold) the section from the webpage and hand it back with the essay and let the students decide (I've never had one of them say it wasn't plagarism).

I cut and pasted the offending sections (I save them to cya) and put them into The Plagarism Checker and actually found pieces I missed--so, thanks for that.

Secondly, the best part about this website (other than its free) is that I'll give it to the students ahead of time and they can check for thmselves.

Finally, there are a myriad of reasons why students plagarise some of the most important of which Crawford didn't cover (no complaint to his good article): number one I've seen is pressure to perform from friends, family, and community--especially amongst the Asian community.

I once had a really good student (high 80's without cheating) plagarise not just because she was under so much pressure to perform highly (she felt a 93 in math was an inch from a failure), but also because she knew her family was being criticised for not putting pressure on their daughter. This student wanted to show the community so badly that she could succeed because her parents didn't put pressure on her that she found herself doing it because she thought she had no choice.

She was in grade 8.

I simply talked to her and let her re-write it...everyone makes bad decisions, and sometimes, like this 14 year old, for reasons that also illustrated a character I've rarely seen in many adults.

Plagarism is certainly an issue, but I often find it is overblown in the public system. It also isn't really taught, so much as mentioned. I teach it, provide examples, and, now, will be able to give them a link so they can check for themselves.

I also think plagarism amongst students who are just--however misguided--struggling to do their best is indiciative of a much, much larger problem. Mainly, the underfunding of ESL support courses in the public system (coupled with the myriad of problems in the private ESL world--too many too list here).

Drop-outs

I cannot quote you the research off-hand, but if memory serves me aprox. 40% of all high school drop-outs are believed to be over-acheivers, with above average IQ, who are bored.

Just in case you're interested: somewhere around 70% of all prisoners suffer co-morbid learning disabilities, behavioural issues, medical (cognitive) impairments, as well as a myriad of other aspects of special needs.

If you look at our system over the last years there've been deep cuts to school psychologists (and teams), learning assistants, decreased access to psychometric testing, changes to what constitutes high versus low special needs (so that more can be jammed into classrooms), etc.

What I find particularly odd about all of this is that this is one situation where throwing more money into a system WOULD improve (not perfect) it.

That time of year...

August is the season for back-to-school hand-wringers, articles about the sorrows of education. My piece is in the genre, and thanks for your responses.

But here are a couple of others worth considering: Stanley Fish in the NYT on why . And Todd Pettigrew in Macleans.ca saying All your profs are wrong about plagiarism, in which he takes me to task about the difference between theft and counterfeiting.

Sorry...

I goofed on formatting the links. Let's try again: Stanley Fish should be here, and Todd Pettigrew should be here.

wcullen

Thank you for putting then numbers to substantiate my observations.
But, 40%! Oh Gods, I did not want to be this right! Don't know whether it makes me want to cry or laugh (that would be hysterically). We have to, just HAVE to, do something with this. I don't know what, but I do know now what to do with my free time when I 'retire' (not that far off). Another broken-record job.

About the plagiarism. If you didn't actually do the research yourself, you are 'plagiarizing' to an extent, and there are only so many ways one can describe something. Outright cutting and pasting is problematic, but if the piece actually fits in with so perfect logic and coherence that it takes a computer program to sort it out, I would say the grasp on the subject cannot totally stink. But of course the source should have been recognized. It's a finer line than most people think. Plagiarism and outright cheating of the bad kind I have heard examples of: A class of students in a computer program, who de-compiled the example they were given to clarify the nature of their assignment, and then just filled in their own specifics, not realizing this could be easily identified by the original programmer, their instructor. Also, there are sometimes problems with 'teamwork'. I have heard and myself experienced in one example, that team-mates would argue for divvying up the work into sections, and they would then trade your piece to people they knew on other teams for what should have been their part of the work, thus making everybody dirty into the bargain. One wonders at the wisdom of an instructor who did not see this one coming. When I took courses in instrumental technology, no two teams were given the same assignments, but assignments considered equal in difficulty were being given by drawing lots.

One example from a public high school really saddened and upsets me. A class-mate of one of my children had a sense that a teacher did not like her and marked her work lower than deserved. She then took on herself to hand in an essay an older relative of hers had done some years earlier. It turned out she got it back, marked three notches lower than what her relative had received. When she took this to her principal, she was merely penalized for 'cheating', and the possible unfair bias in marking was never addressed. I wonder if she also dropped out and what category she would fit under:

Plagiarsm as theft

Plagiarism is the uncredited reuse of someone's writing. You can plagiarize yourself if you do not credit your earlier writing in citations! It is not theft. You cannot steal from yourself.
Theft is a term of art describing property. It describes an act that deprives the rightful owner of his or her property. No one owns ideas, but one can claim credit for new expressions "coined" by oneself. It is a sloppy use of language to describe plagiarism as theft. Plagiarism is possibly misappropriation of credit, but it involves no deprivation of the physical manifestation of writing or imagery. It is to be discouraged as intellectually dishonest, but by using sloppy terminology we encourage the use of inappropriate remedies and confounds the natural development of language and knowledge.
For an expression to mean anything it must convey meaning from a speaker to a listener. This almost always means it must refer to shared experience or common imagery. We call this shared experience culture, or grammar, literacy or language. It is how we communicate with one another. It is why the term intellectual property is a misnomer. It encourages authors and artists to assume they "own" their writings and expressions exclusively. They do not, but they are entitled to an interest in them. We must remember that copyright was invented as a tool of censorship, retained as a way of compensating authors for their efforts, by allowing authors to exploit the temporary right by monetizing the permission to use the resulting expression. However, when something is stolen there is a loss of its value and use to the owner. The reason copyright has been temporally limited has been the recognition that among the bundle of rights granted by government in copyright is a responsibility for the author or artist to share his or her new expression with society. That responsibility comes from the author's use of the cultural experience, grammar, vocabulary and reliance upon the audience's allowance of his or her use of vocabulary, imagery, language and shared experience that is the Public Domain without having to compensate the commons, except by rendering the resultant expression into the public domain. Authors and artists must recognize this and temper their expectation of compensation for ownership with the knowledge that without an audience, their work is akin to the sound of a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it.