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Excuses and
Plagiarism Upon the occasion of posting grades,
I encounter excuses for poor writing, none legitimate. A few examples will suffice to make
the point. Students tell me that they have never
before written a scholarly paper.
This may be true (and, if so, unfortunate), but no college student can
tell me he has never before encountered rules of grammar, spelling, and
punctuation, or learned how to read and write texts. Every college student can write a
scholarly paper if he makes the effort. Effort means developing an interest in
the subject, even if it is only for the semester, and investing time enough
to accomplish the work in a professional manner. One does not learn a craft without interest and
considerable investment in time. Students
tell me that they have never before used the Chicago Manual of Style author/date system for
managing sources. Perhaps this
is true, but the problem of style is not that the writer never before used a
particular system, but that she did not use it for the paper she submitted. The Chicago Manual of Style is easy to
use; anybody who uses it will be able to. (Take care not to use the documentary note style, which is
the other Chicago style system for managing sources designed for the
humanities.) Students
tell me that they forgot to follow the rules, that
the poor quality of their work is accidental, that they just were not
thinking. Others tell me that
they meant well, but they were pressed for time and had to do a rush
job. Some tell me that they were
not aware there were any rules!
If only they had known!
But the real reason for submitting work that does not conform to the
rules is that the student did not follow the rules. Once a paper is submitted, it is too late to follow the
rules. This
last excuse is often featured in cases of plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of taking the
ideas or words of other persons and passing them off as one’s own – not
just copying text, but failing to attribute the source of ideas that are not
his. Plagiarism is not
“borrowing.” It is
stealing. According to standard
definitions, including the U.S. criminal law, presenting
as new and original ideas and words derived from an existing source is
literary theft. Not only is
plagiarism theft, but it’s also fraud, since the intent is to deceive the
reader into believing that the work is the author’s when in fact it is the
work of another person. (This is
one of the reasons I do not allow students to use the encyclopedia and the
Internet.) Guilty
students object to the consequences – first offense, I throw out the
paper (and there is no do-over); second offense, I report the student to the
Dean of Students – with the excuse that they did not know they were
plagiarizing, or that they were up against the deadline and had to hurry, and
that they therefore did not purposely plagiarize. But how would a professor prove a student purposely
plagiarized? Fortunately,
professors do not have to.
Culpability
for a wrongful act exists when a person purposely, with knowledge,
recklessly, or negligently engages in behavior deemed wrongful by an
authority. Negligence
specifically applies to the claim of ignorance. Negligence exists when the individual fails to exercise
the care expected of a reasonable person or when the individual is unaware of
the consequences of her conduct when a reasonable person would have
been. Put another way: an act or
omission is negligence per se because it is contrary to the requirements of
the rule or so opposed to the dictates of good sense that a careful person
would not have committed the act or omission (Gifis 2003, 339). Recklessness applies here, as well,
since students who plagiarize are often desperate and imprudent, giving
little thought to the consequences of their actions while they work furiously
to meet the deadline or to move on to other things they deem more important. Negligence
and recklessness increase the probability of plagiarism and thus make the
perpetrator culpable for the action regardless of whether the action was
planned or known to have occurred. Because I assume the student is a
reasonable person, I expect her to know what plagiarism is and to always
conduct research in a forthright and responsible manner, as well as take the
time necessary to properly prepare the assignment. Therefore, all acts of
plagiarism, whether purposeful or stemming from negligence or imprudence, are
by definition intentional. To
help students develop a sense of the range of behaviors that constitute, all
my syllabi include the following link: http://www.plagiarism.org/. Students are required to review this
resource. Competent presentation of research
always honestly identifies the sources of information, making it possible for
the reader to distinguish between the author’s ideas and the ideas of those
upon whom the author relies, and to track down those sources if he wishes to
examine them for himself. It takes me a long time to grade papers because I
check sources. In addition, I
require that students provide me photocopies of the first printed page of
journal articles and the recto title page of books used in the paper (for the
required number of sources). I will not grade any paper than does not have
associated with it this documentation.
Students
ask me why I care so much about writing. “This isn’t a writing class,” they say. “You’re not an English teacher.” If this is not a writing class, then
why am I making my students write?
Of course, it is a writing class! Most college classes are writing classes. True, I am not an English teacher;
but I am a teacher working in the English language, and I would be doing
students a great disservice if I did not demand excellence in all aspects of
academic work. I
recognize that, for students, it is easier to ask the teacher for the answer
than to read the instructions or visit a FAQ to find the answer for themselves.
For teachers, it is a source of frustration to have to answer the same
questions repeatedly when they provide the answers in the course materials. I
am not here talking about questions of substance and interpretation, but
about statements of fact.
Students should recognize that they make a poor impression on their
teachers when they fail to demonstrate such basic skills as reading
instructions, following directions, or finding the spelling or meaning of a
word in a dictionary. When
a student asks a question that I have already answered or that the student
could look up on his own, I tell the student where to find the
information. Some students have
suggested that my redirecting queries or not answering repetitive e-mails
indicate that I am unhelpful. (I
once had a student complain on her evaluation of my course that when she
asked me how to spell a word I told her to look it up!) If it were true that I was unhelpful,
then I wouldn't have spent hours on this lengthy guide on writing
papers! There
a famous Chinese proverb that goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a
day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” I like this proverb. A lot. Take responsibility for your
education. Want to impress a teacher? Show initiative and figure out the
simple stuff on your own. |
Contents Writing in My Class (Introduction) |
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