Plagiarism in the Chronicle of Higher Education
Jonathan Malesic, in Monday's (Dec. 11, 2006) Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=SyT4vksbhdhbyz3hpzKz5FQSq4XXkwj3
wrote an account entitled "How dumb do they think we are?" (If the link does not work, you can search by author/title in Academic Search Premier which indexes the Chronicle by title/author, etc. ) His students' plagiarism efforts provide the fodder for his comment--really a vent--about this issue. I sent this link to the 18 students in my College Writing class because I think it is time they hear the OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY! Whether or not they actually read it remains to be seen, but here are a few paragraphs of his column...
"What's most astounding, though -- and most insulting -- is that students plagiarism in ways that are so easy to catch. They cut and paste without thinking to cover their tracks. They copy from the most obvious sources possible. They find and replace words and then do not proofread to ensure clarity.
Do they think we're stupid? If they're going to plagiarize, why can't they at least do it in a way that acknowledges that their audience is intelligent? Don't they know what the big framed diplomas on our walls mean?
I think that student plagiarists are often poor plagiarists because they don't realize that it's even possible to be a savvy reader, that it's possible to read a text that has been cobbled together from multiple sources and determine where one source's contribution ends and another's begins. Those students don't pay attention to diction, syntax, or tone when they read, so they can't possibly imagine that someone else might.
If that is, in fact, what goes on (or, rather, doesn't go on) in our students' minds when they are copying material from the Internet, then we may have run into an example of a broad human tendency to take our individual selves as the standard by which we judge everyone else."
Perhaps his comments are too arrogant or dismissive of students, but his thoughts resonated with me! How about you?
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=SyT4vksbhdhbyz3hpzKz5FQSq4XXkwj3
wrote an account entitled "How dumb do they think we are?" (If the link does not work, you can search by author/title in Academic Search Premier which indexes the Chronicle by title/author, etc. ) His students' plagiarism efforts provide the fodder for his comment--really a vent--about this issue. I sent this link to the 18 students in my College Writing class because I think it is time they hear the OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY! Whether or not they actually read it remains to be seen, but here are a few paragraphs of his column...
"What's most astounding, though -- and most insulting -- is that students plagiarism in ways that are so easy to catch. They cut and paste without thinking to cover their tracks. They copy from the most obvious sources possible. They find and replace words and then do not proofread to ensure clarity.
Do they think we're stupid? If they're going to plagiarize, why can't they at least do it in a way that acknowledges that their audience is intelligent? Don't they know what the big framed diplomas on our walls mean?
I think that student plagiarists are often poor plagiarists because they don't realize that it's even possible to be a savvy reader, that it's possible to read a text that has been cobbled together from multiple sources and determine where one source's contribution ends and another's begins. Those students don't pay attention to diction, syntax, or tone when they read, so they can't possibly imagine that someone else might.
If that is, in fact, what goes on (or, rather, doesn't go on) in our students' minds when they are copying material from the Internet, then we may have run into an example of a broad human tendency to take our individual selves as the standard by which we judge everyone else."
Perhaps his comments are too arrogant or dismissive of students, but his thoughts resonated with me! How about you?
posted by Wellehan Library | 7:03 AM
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