Fighting the Fear: Plagiarism and Technophobia

1. Fighting the Fear: Plagiarism and Technophobia LanetteCadle o • The Connection Between Plagiarism and Technophobia • Cadle points out that plagiarism is not a new concept, that “the not-so-tech-savvy past had its file drawers of shared papers and ethically-challenged scholars who would custom-write for pay. The internet did not invent that particular piece of enterprise.” • Is plagiarism actually more prevalent rather than merely easier to catch (the free-flow of information works for instructors as well)? • Plagiarism detection services can be seen as either an answer to fears or, at the same time, a fear generator.

2. Fear Metaphors Cadle examines the intertwining of plagiarism and digital spaces through use of metaphor. Metaphor #1: Plagiarism as Disease “Words used to describe plagiarism include epidemic, disease, or infection. Plagiarism "spreads," making it organic in a negative way, in other words, a disease that needs "prevention." Metaphor #2: Plagiarism as Crime “If ideas can be owned--and to some extent in the United States, they can--then plagiarism is theft. Theft is a crime.”

3. Defining Plagiarism WPA Council states: "In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else's language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source." They go further to note that “this definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers.“ However, for Cadle, the term “plagiarism does not include the kinds of citing mistakes that happen when students are either still learning citation conventions or omit elements of proper citation due to carelessness. It will also specifically exclude patchwriting (Howard, 1999), which, as Howard points out so well, is an expression of the natural learning curve for all would-be professional writers.”

4. Patchwriting Howarddefines "patchwriting" as "copying from a source text and then deleting some words, altering grammatical structures, or plugging in one-for-one synonym-substitutes." (213) To underscore her contention that this is a transitional technique rather than an intellectual crime, she refers to Glynda Hull and Mike Rose's article "Rethinking Remediation: Toward a Social-Cognitive Understanding of Problematic Reading and Writing." Hull and Rose describe a seemingly incoherent summary written by Tanya, a seriously underprepared and at-risk student who constructed her summary by drawing bits and pieces from disparate parts of the original, changing a word here and there but otherwise copying whole chunks verbatim.

5. The Citation Project Presented at 4Cs Conference 2011 • The Citation Project Research Team • Principal Researchers • Dr. Sandra Jamieson, Drew UniversityDr. Rebecca Moore Howard, Syracuse University • http://site.citationproject.net/ • The Citation project has analyzed 1,911 citations from 174 student papers produced at 16 different US colleges and universities. Instructors followed composition course for one year. Each instructor read and evaluated all sources incorporated in student essays. Their findings reveal that most students do not evaluate the source; in fact, few could identify the argument. Rather, students often find one or two quotes that pertain to their topic without regard for the entire source’s applicability. Research also revealed that instructors reward proper citation, and in this instance, did not evaluate the relevance of a source the student uses.

6. Pedagogy Connections • Cadle also contends that students are so focused on proper citation that they loose sight of the bigger picture: the evaluation and relevance of an outside source. “Increased fear of plagiarism and the larger part such fear plays in life inside and outside academia hampers the classroom climate needed for students to effectively learn academic writing .” • How do we, as writing instructors, create a climate of trust in the writing classroom? • How do we eliminate the fear?

7. Pedagogy Not Based on Fear • In short, those who want pedagogy not based on fear should • Avoid generic, not classroom-specific writing assignments; • Give instruction on plagiarism policy, and note that it differs by school; • Give instruction on appropriate source attribution; • See the teacher's role as a coach rather than as police; • Facilitation, not prosecution.

8. Plagiarism Detection Services: The Heart of Technophobia • Fear Metaphors in Action: • Using a Machine to Fight the Machine • “Fear of the unknown in general, technology minimalists and technophobes, and those who fear change, bundle their particular fears into a metaphoric category, one that equates plagiarism (even misdiagnosed) and Web 1.0/2.0 with monsters and the monstrous.” • Cadle is suggesting that the plagiarism that “plagues” today’s classrooms is “born” from the technology of the internet. Therefore, plagiarism detection services are an internet technology that fights internet crime.

9. English 100 – English Composition Assignment: Verify MLA in-text citation and works cited through plagiarism software. • Utilize free plagiarism software to proofread your essay for in-text citation errors. • Utilize originality report to locate primary sources for information presented in your essay. • Utilize originality report as a research tool to locate additional sources on your topic. • Utilize free plagiarism software that does not retain your essay in any database.

10. English 100 – English Composition Requirements • Go to http://searchenginereports.net/articlecheck.aspx • Copy and paste your text into the text box. • You may post a URL or upload a document file from your computer. • Run the originality report. • From this report, verify missed quotation marks and/or missed in-text citations. • Search through the list of sources for the primary source for data presented in your essay.