On the Unintentional
I don't think plagiarism is as simple as "he's lazy" or "he wants a better grade than he can get himself," though those are obviously factors in some cases. A lot of it, I firmly believe, is accidental.
I saw a biomed paper yesterday (of course I did) that was well-structured, well-written and provided a lot of interesting information, but there wasn't a single citation. It was an OWL so of course I had no dialogue with the writer, but I'm sure it was either a function of forgetting to include the citations, of having not cited an early draft or of not being confident with the citation process. I've also seen a couple of papers from students who just aren't sure when to cite what. We've had to sit down and hash out whether huge portions of their work constitute common knowledge or whether it was time to pull out ye old APA manual.
I think the influence of technology on this generation is a factor as well. I have a looser sense of author's rights than my professors probably do because I have grown up in a different intellectual climate. The free proliferation of knowledge seems like a natural expectation to me, thanks primarily to the omnipresence of the internet over my childhood. If I ever had a question, any curiosity about anything, I could answer it in detail with next to no effort. Because of the autonomous and unregulated nature of the internet, adequate citation is a rarity, and I think I've grown up fostering a different attitude than the previous generation. Of course knowledge is free. Of course it belongs to everyone. That's how it's always been. (For me.)
Hippie claptrap, I know.
...how does the blogger spellcheck catch "internet" but not "claptrap?"
It's also fair to say that plagiarizing is a lot easier now. With all the information necessary at a student's beckon call, most of it anonymous and difficult to pinpoint, of course the temptation will be there. I don't think most students have malicious intent when they consider ripping off another person's work, but it's just so damn easy. If you have a student whose grade is hanging by a thread and who is sensitive and insecure about the quality of his own writing, supplementing with definitions from the internet will naturally seem like a viable alternative.
I dunno. There are still plenty of straight-up cheaters out there, but I don't believe most of our students would plagiarize out of generally being dishonest brats. We tread a much finer line than our predecessors did, and some of us walk it better than others. The rest just need a little help.
/naive young educator
I saw a biomed paper yesterday (of course I did) that was well-structured, well-written and provided a lot of interesting information, but there wasn't a single citation. It was an OWL so of course I had no dialogue with the writer, but I'm sure it was either a function of forgetting to include the citations, of having not cited an early draft or of not being confident with the citation process. I've also seen a couple of papers from students who just aren't sure when to cite what. We've had to sit down and hash out whether huge portions of their work constitute common knowledge or whether it was time to pull out ye old APA manual.
I think the influence of technology on this generation is a factor as well. I have a looser sense of author's rights than my professors probably do because I have grown up in a different intellectual climate. The free proliferation of knowledge seems like a natural expectation to me, thanks primarily to the omnipresence of the internet over my childhood. If I ever had a question, any curiosity about anything, I could answer it in detail with next to no effort. Because of the autonomous and unregulated nature of the internet, adequate citation is a rarity, and I think I've grown up fostering a different attitude than the previous generation. Of course knowledge is free. Of course it belongs to everyone. That's how it's always been. (For me.)
Hippie claptrap, I know.
...how does the blogger spellcheck catch "internet" but not "claptrap?"
It's also fair to say that plagiarizing is a lot easier now. With all the information necessary at a student's beckon call, most of it anonymous and difficult to pinpoint, of course the temptation will be there. I don't think most students have malicious intent when they consider ripping off another person's work, but it's just so damn easy. If you have a student whose grade is hanging by a thread and who is sensitive and insecure about the quality of his own writing, supplementing with definitions from the internet will naturally seem like a viable alternative.
I dunno. There are still plenty of straight-up cheaters out there, but I don't believe most of our students would plagiarize out of generally being dishonest brats. We tread a much finer line than our predecessors did, and some of us walk it better than others. The rest just need a little help.
/naive young educator
posted by Briasaurus REX at 8:30 AM
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