NOTES ON PLAGIARISM

From Purdue’s OWL: Plagiarism: the uncredited use (both intentional and unintentional) of somebody else's words or ideas.

The LEAST plagiarism does:

• ·    Throws doubt on the authenticity of all further work done in a class by the individual
• ·       Brings greater scrutiny to an entire class of papers—if one person plagiarized, then surely many more did, as well; these must also be found and rooted out
• ·       Insults & angers the instructor (whether teacher or professor), sometimes forcing him/her to change intended plans for the entire class

Imagine two students:

One struggles with critical thinking, analysis, understanding a text and its implied and inferred meanings and works at every paper assigned to be written. It is an internal struggle and the greatest fear is failure. In desperation he decides, just this one time, to get help online. He scans Spark Notes, E-notes, Wikipedia, anything that turns up in Google that seems to be related to the assigned topic.  Now he knows he may be caught, he knows what he’s doing isn’t copacetic, but he takes the risk because he is desperate.

The second student is almost the polar opposite of the first student: she is intelligent, capable, considered “smart,” and the work she does, the analysis and understanding she grasps from the text appears to be genuine. Yet, from our study of irony, we know truths may be different from their appearance. This student is busy, works (on her own interests and concerns), and does not realize until the day before the paper is due that she may need help. The pressure is on. Her parents want her to do well; her peers expect her to do well; she wants to do well—because ultimately, for her, as with many students, what’s important is the grade at the end of the course. Learning? Critical thinking? Analysis? Oh, she can already do that; what she needs is some help in this paper.  Not much. Just a definition—maybe some clever phrasing. She could even reword it so it doesn’t “sound” like a reference page from the internet. She might also cobble together a paper from a few different sources, with some of her own transitions. That’s critical thinking, right? Evaluating the reference, analyzing what she can use and synthesizing it into her own paper.  All she wants is a good grade; everyone’s expecting it.

A third perspective:

The teacher/professor grades both students’ papers and sees the plagiarism. Both students fail—but the student who works, who struggles, who is desperate . . .the teacher feels some sympathy for. Not everyone is an English major, after all. The more capable student is given little sympathy, because ultimately, she wasn't that desperate, did not lack for ability or competence—she simply comes off as a  “smart,” but very lazy student.  This speaks volumes to the instructor, who ultimately seem bitter and disgusted, but is actually very disappointed.