[edi581] Melissa O's plagiarism response
- From: Melissa Osburn <mdosburn02@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: G C <edi581@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 14:58:52 -0800 (PST)
It seems after reading through the articles and the various responses sent in
so far, everyone has similar feelings. Even though there is technology
available to run papers through cheat detectors, we need to solve the problem
before it happens. It is similar to speeding in that respect - is it better to
keep inventing radar guns to beat radar detectors that were built to beat radar
guns, etc, etc. Just like it is far better to spend our time teaching the
dangers of speeding and not just improving the technology used to catch
speeders; we must also teach students to take ownership in their work and not
produce it wrongfully. An obvious (and a bit humerous) violation I witnessed
was in one of our Social Studies classes last year. The students were giving
oral presentations of a particular research assignment they were given. They
were allowed to use notecards while speaking to assist them. Although some of
the difficult vocabulary being used by a few students was a good
indication that they were merely reciting information they had read, we had a
"perfect" example of cut and paste. This student, who not only cut and paste
the actual article right onto the notecards (didn't even copy it by hand), must
have also forgot to proofread his speech. Halfway through his presentation he
was reading along from his cards and after completing a sentence said "see
picture below". Obviously since he has no "picture", it was very easy for
everyone-even the other students to pick up on his plagiarism. I have seen
many other instances from papers on file at college to people actually using
the older brothers or sisters reports. A good way to prevent this may be to
change the assignment. Possibly not just a report, but a compare / contrast of
differnet topics or an opinion paper on a current event. Another approach may
be to make citing sources easy so students don't find it overbearring and
choose to not do it. Danielle had a good observation when discussing
coping pictures, where is the legal line. Especially when you can get your
pictures developed onto a cd or view them on-line and then print them on pictue
paper.
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