Practical argument: A text and anthology - Laurie G. Kirszner, Stephen R. Mandell 2019

Using sources responsibly
Using sources to support your argument

AT ISSUE

Where Should We Draw the Line with Plagiarism?

In recent years, a number of high-profile plagiarism cases have put a spotlight on how much “borrowing” from other sources is acceptable. Some critics—and many colleges and universities—draw little distinction between intentional and unintentional plagiarism, arguing that any unattributed borrowing is theft. Others are more forgiving, accepting the fact that busy historians or scientists (or students) might not realize that a particular sentence in their notes was not their original idea or might accidentally incorporate a source’s exact words (or its unique syntax or phrasing) into their own work without attribution.

In the age of the internet, with its “cut-and-paste” culture, plagiarism has become easier to commit; however, with the development of plagiarism-detection software, it is also now much easier to detect. Still, some colleges and universities are uncomfortable with the idea of using such software, arguing that it establishes an atmosphere of distrust.

On college campuses, as in the professional world, many are questioning and reevaluating the concept of plagiarism. What exactly constitutes plagiarism? How serious a matter is it? Is there a difference between intentional and unintentional plagiarism? Why do people commit plagiarism? What should be done to prevent it? How should it be punished? What are its short- and long-term consequences?

These are some (although by no means all) of the questions to consider as you explore the sources at the end of this chapter. After reading these sources, you will be asked to write an argumentative essay that takes a position on the issue of what exactly constitutes plagiarism and how it should be dealt with.

Understanding Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of using the words or ideas of another person without attributing them to their rightful author—that is, presenting those borrowed words and ideas as if they are your own. When you plagiarize, you fail to use sources ethically or responsibly.

TWO DEFINITIONS OF PLAGIARISM

From MLA Handbook, Eighth Edition (2016)

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines plagiarizing as committing “literary theft.” Plagiarism is presenting another person’s ideas, information, expressions, or entire work as one’s own. It is thus a kind of fraud: deceiving others to gain something of value. While plagiarism only sometimes has legal repercussions (e.g., when it involves copyright infringement—violating an authors’ exclusive legal right to publication), it is always a serious moral and ethical offense.

From Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition (2009)

Researchers do not claim the words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due (APA Ethics Code Standard 8.11, Plagiarism). Quotation marks should be used to indicate the exact words of another. Each time you paraphrase another author (i.e., summarize a passage or rearrange the order of a sentence and change some of the words), you need to credit the source in the text.

The key element of this principle is that authors do not present the work of another as if it were their own work. This can extend to ideas as well as written words. If authors model a study after one done by someone else, the originating author should be given credit. If the rationale for a study was suggested in the Discussion section of someone else’s article, that person should be given credit. Given the free exchange of ideas, which is very important to the health of intellectual discourse, authors may not know where an idea for a study originated. If authors do know, however, they should acknowledge the source; this includes personal communications.

For many people, defining plagiarism is simple: it is not “borrowing” but stealing, and it should be dealt with severely. For others, however, it is a more slippery term, seen as considerably more serious if it is intentional than if it is accidental (for example, the result of careless research methods). Most colleges and universities have guidelines that define plagiarism strictly and have penalties in place for those who commit it. To avoid committing unintentional plagiarism, you need to understand exactly what it is and why it occurs. You also need to learn how to use sources responsibly and to understand what kind of information requires documentation and what kind does not.

Avoiding Unintentional Plagiarism

Even if you do not intentionally misuse the words or ideas of a source, you are still committing plagiarism if you present the work of others as your own. To avoid unintentional plagiarism, you need to maintain control over your sources, keeping track of all the material you use so that you remember where you found each piece of information.

As you take notes, be careful to distinguish your sources’ ideas from your own. If you are copying a source’s words into your notes, put them in quotation marks. (If you are taking notes by hand, circle the quotation marks; if you are typing your notes, put the quotation marks in boldface or in color.) If you photocopy material, write the full source information on the first page, and staple the pages together. When you download material from the internet, be sure the URL appears on every page. Finally, never cut and paste material from a source directly into your paper.

As you draft your paper, be sure to quote your sources’ words accurately (even punctuation must be reproduced exactly as it appears in the source). Be careful not to quote out of context, and be sure that you are presenting your sources’ ideas accurately when you summarize or paraphrase. (For information on quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing source material, see Chapter 9.)

The most common errors that lead to unintentional plagiarism—and how to avoid them—are listed below.

INTERNET SOURCES AND PLAGIARISM

The internet presents a particular challenge for students as they try to avoid plagiarism. Committing plagiarism (intentional or unintentional) with electronic sources is easy because it is simple to cut and paste material from online sources into a paper. However, inserting even a sentence or two from an internet source (including a blog, an email, or a website) into a paper without quotation marks and documentation constitutes plagiarism.

It is also not acceptable to use a visual found on the internet without acknowledging its source. This includes:

§ Graphs

§ Charts

§ Tables

§ Photographs

Finally, even if an internet source does not identify its author, the words or ideas you find there are not your own original material, so you must identify their source.

INTENTIONAL PLAGIARISM

Deliberately plagiarizing from a source, handing in another student’s paper as your own, or buying a paper from an internet site is never acceptable. Such acts constitute serious violations of academic integrity. Creating your own original work is an important part of the educational experience, and misrepresenting someone else’s work as your own undermines the goals of education.

Knowing What to Document

Documentation is the practice of identifying borrowed material and providing the proper bibliographic information for each source. Different academic disciplines require different formats for documentation—for example, English uses MLA, and psychology uses APA. For this reason, you should be sure to check with your instructor to find out what documentation style to use. (For information on MLA and APA documentation formats, see Chapter 10 and Appendix B, respectively.)

Regardless of the discipline, the following kinds of information should always be documented:

§ Quotations from a source

§ Summaries of a source’s main points

§ Paraphrases of a source’s original ideas

§ Opinions, judgments, and conclusions that are not your own

§ Statistics from a source

§ Visuals from a source

§ Data from charts or graphs in a source

The following kinds of information, however, do not require documentation:

§ Common knowledge—that is, factual information that can be found in several different sources. Examples of different sources include the following:

§ A writer’s date of birth

§ A scientific fact

§ The location of a famous battle

§ Familiar quotations—anything from proverbs to frequently quoted lines from Shakespeare’s plays—that you expect readers will recognize

§ Your own original opinions, judgments, and conclusions

EXERCISE 11.1 DECIDING WHAT TO DOCUMENT

Which of the following statements requires documentation, and why?

1. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a prize-winning historian.

2. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys is a 900-page book with about 3,500 footnotes.

3. In 1994, Lynne McTaggart accused Goodwin of borrowing material from a book that McTaggart wrote.

4. My own review of the background suggests that Goodwin’s plagiarism was unintentional.

5. Still, these accusations left Goodwin to face the “slings and arrows” of media criticism.

6. As Goodwin explains, “The more intensive and far-reaching a historian’s research, the greater the difficulty of citation.”

7. In her defense, Goodwin argued that the more research a historian does, the harder it is to keep track of sources.

8. Some people still remain convinced that Goodwin committed plagiarism.

9. Goodwin believes that her careful research methods, which she has described in exhaustive detail, should have prevented accidental plagiarism.

10. Some of Goodwin’s critics have concluded that her reputation as a historian was hurt by the plagiarism charges.

EXERCISE 11.2 KNOWING WHEN TO DOCUMENT

Assume you are using the following editorial as a source. Identify two pieces of information you would need to document (for example, statistics). Then, identify two pieces of information you would not need to document (for example, common knowledge).

WHEN BEYONCÉ’S INSPIRATION TURNS INTO IMITATION

ERIKA RAMIREZ

This editorial was first published on May 1, 2013.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but what if the person imitating is a polarizing icon that should be doing otherwise—someone like Beyoncé?

On Monday (April 29), pop singer Kerli posted a side-by-side photo on her Facebook page of her and Beyoncé donning the same Amato Haute Couture dress. The photo of Beyoncé comes from the pages of her 2013 Mrs. Carter Show tour book.

Except, it’s not just the Furne One designed dress—which also Nicki Minaj wore in her “Va Va Voom” video—that’s similar in the photo. Both singers can be seen painted in white, from head to toe, and stylistically posed as sculptures.

No one owns a look, image, dance move (after all, how many artists have pulled out signature Michael Jackson moves?), or in this case, an experimental costume. They’re not copyrighted property, but filed as intellectual property.

Any artist, including Beyoncé, can wear whatever another artist wore, but that multiplicity gets suspicious and easily pegged as stealing. And understandably so, when it’s not only the look of the artist that is being traced, but his or her entire idea.

“There’s a difference between inspiration and imitation.”

Beyoncé first caught flak for working up a dance similar to Josephine Baker’s iconic banana dance in her “Deja Vu” video, then was seen sporting a skirt with dangling bananas when performing the “B’Day” track. But let’s be honest: that wasn’t that serious, at least not at that point in her 20-year plus career. She later borrowed from Bob Fosse’s routine, “Mexican Breakfast,” in the video for her girls anthem, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” There are also references to “Rich Man’s Frug” scene (of Bob Fosse’s “Sweet Charity”) in Bey’s “Get Me Bodied” video.

There’s a difference between inspiration and imitation. “Countdown” is a good example of Beyoncé doing both in one piece of work. She references Audrey Hepburn’s Funny Face dancing and both Hepburn and Peggy Moffitt’s late 50’s/early 60’s fashion, then elaborates with color schemes and pairs the choreography perfectly with the pace of the soundscapes. She also samples Boyz II Men’s countdown from their song, “Uhh Ahh.”

As the video continues, we see Bey using the same choreography, cinematography, and costumes that Belgian choreographer and dancer, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, used in “Rosas Danst Rosas.” It’s one thing to be inspired by someone else’s work and revamp with one’s personal style, but it’s another to duplicate exact movements, which is ultimately violating the artist’s intellectual property. Context matters.

Before the debut of “Countdown,” Beyoncé was criticized for nearly replicating Italian singer Lorella Cuccarini’s live performance with her performance of “Run the World (Girls)” at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards. She later stated that she had hired the same choreographers that had worked on Cuccarini’s performance, but it’s still puzzling as to why she didn’t work with them to create a groundbreaking concept of her own.

The choreography, seen in the performance and the song’s accompanying music video, comes from Mozambique dance troupe Tofo Tofo. Instead of thanking them for the inspiration after the fact, as she’s done with Cuccarini and Keersmaeker, Beyoncé brought them to the U.S. and hired them to dance alongside her in the “Run the World (Girls)” video.

The 2011 song, off her fourth studio album 4 swipes the beat from Major Lazer’s 2009 “Pon De Floor.” According to Diplo, one half of Major Lazer, the making of “Run the World (Girls)” started out as a “joke” (whatever that means).

Beyoncé’s “1 + 1” video features scenes similar to the unfinished French film, Le’Enfer, while her “Love On Top” video has dancing scenes much the same as those in New Edition’s “If It Isn’t Love” video.

But more bothersome than Bey’s inspiration-turned-imitation act—and less subtle as her career progresses—is that she’s playing off the risks that other artists have been brave enough to take (and appropriately praised for) instead of challenging herself and taken some herself.

Perhaps visual and dance concepts don’t come as naturally to her as vocal prowess, but I’m doubtful that she can recruit those for which it does. No shots at Frank Gatson Jr. (but shots?) who is a director, visual artist developer, creative director, and choreographer who’s worked closely with greats like Diana Ross, Mariah Carey, Tina Turner, and consecutively with Beyoncé.

Even as a vocal performer, Beyoncé is more of a canvas than a creator. The majority of her discography was written (yes, some co-written) by other singer-songwriters, from the likes of Ne-Yo to The-Dream. But the formula works for her: she holds 19 top 10s on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with six No. 1s.

The bittersweet side of Beyoncé stealing imitable art is that when she does, she does it well. Perhaps it’s why we give the diva a pass, or two, and will in the future. Let’s also not forget that voice of hers and stage stamina that hypnotizes many into disregarding such acts—after all, words and imagery can only strike a chord or transcend to a degree if they’re executed with astounding talent.

Revising to Eliminate Plagiarism

As you revise your papers, scrutinize your work carefully to be sure you have not inadvertently committed plagiarism. To help you understand the most common situations in which accidental plagiarism is likely to occur, read this paragraph from page 1 of “Don’t Fall for the Myths about Online Privacy,” by Shelley Fralic, which appears in Chapter 9 (p. 320).

Facebook’s fine print, like that of many internet portals, is specific and offers a variety of self-selected “privacy” options.

But to think that any interaction with it, and its ilk, is truly private is beyond absurd.

How can there still be people out there who still don’t get that Netflix and Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, Google and Tinder, and pretty much every keystroke or communication we register on a smartphone or laptop, not to mention a loyalty card and the GPS in your car, are constantly tracking and sifting and collating everything we do?

To avoid unintentional plagiarism when using material from this paragraph in an essay of your own, follow these four guidelines:

1. Be sure you have identified your source and provided appropriate documentation.

PLAGIARISM

Even though Facebook users can select from various privacy options, it makes no sense to assume that engaging with Facebook and similar sites guarantees privacy.

This student writer does not quote directly from Fralic’s discussion, but his summary of her comments does not represent her original ideas and therefore needs to be documented.

The following correct use of source material includes both an identifying tag (a phrase that identifies Fralic as the source of the ideas) and a page number that directs readers to the exact location of the material the student is summarizing. (Full source information is provided in the works-cited list.)

CORRECT

According to Shelley Fralic, even though Facebook users can select from among various privacy options, it makes no sense to assume that engaging with Facebook and similar sites guarantees privacy (1).

2. Be sure you have placed quotation marks around borrowed words.

PLAGIARISM

According to Shelley Fralic, it is hard to imagine that people still don’t understand that Facebook and similar sites are constantly tracking and sifting and collating everything we do (1).

Although the preceding sentence provides parenthetical documentation and includes an identifying tag indicating the source of its ideas, it uses Fralic’s exact words without placing them in quotation marks.

To avoid committing plagiarism, the student needs to either place quotation marks around Fralic’s words or paraphrase her comments.

CORRECT (BORROWED WORDS IN QUOTATION MARKS)

According to Shelley Fralic, it is hard to imagine that people still don’t understand that Facebook and similar sites “are constantly tracking and sifting and collating everything we do” (1).

CORRECT (BORROWED WORDS PARAPHRASED)

According to Shelley Fralic, it is hard to imagine that people still don’t understand that Facebook and similar sites are always following our posts (1).

3. Be sure you have indicated the boundaries of the borrowed material.

PLAGIARISM

Although Facebook users can select from among various privacy options, engaging with Facebook is not private. It is hard to imagine that anyone still believes that Facebook is not “constantly tracking and sifting and collating everything we do” (1).

In the preceding passage, the student correctly places Fralic’s words in quotation marks and includes appropriate parenthetical documentation. However, she does not indicate that other ideas in the passage, although not quoted directly, are also Fralic’s.

To avoid committing plagiarism, the student needs to use identifying tags to indicate the boundaries of the borrowed material, which goes beyond the quoted words.

CORRECT

According to Shelley Fralic, although Facebook users can select from among various privacy options, engaging with Facebook is not private. It is hard to imagine, Fralic observes, that anyone still believes that Facebook is not “constantly tracking and sifting and collating everything we do” (1).

4. Be sure you have used your own phrasing and syntax.

PLAGIARISM

As Shelley Fralic observes, Facebook’s fine print offers various self-selected “privacy” options. However, she believes that it is beyond absurd to think that interacting with Facebook and its ilk is truly private. She questions how there can still be people who don’t realize that sites like Netflix, Facebook, and Instagram—and pretty much every keystroke on our smartphones or laptops, and even our loyalty cards and GPS—are constantly tracking and sifting and collating everything we do (1).

The student who wrote the paragraph above does provide an identifying tag and parenthetical documentation to identify the source of his ideas. However, his paragraph’s phrasing and syntax are almost identical to Fralic’s.

In the following paragraph, the writer correctly paraphrases and summarizes Friedman’s ideas, quoting a few distinctive passages. (See Chapter 9 for information on paraphrase and summary.)

CORRECT

According to Shelley Fralic, although Facebook does permit its users to choose among various privacy options, using the site is by no means a private activity. Fralic wonders how anyone can still not understand that the sites we visit—not just Facebook, but also Instagram, Twitter, and the rest—as well as “pretty much every keystroke or communication we register on a smartphone or laptop . . . are constantly tracking and sifting and collating everything we do” (1).

EXERCISE 11.3 SYNTHESIZING SOURCES RESPONSIBLY

The following student paragraph synthesizes information from two different sources (which appear on pp. 364—65, following the student paragraph), but the student writer has not used sources responsibly. (For information on synthesis, see Chapter 9.) Read the sources and the paragraph, and then make the following changes:

§ Insert quotation marks where the student has quoted a source’s words.

§ Edit paraphrased and summarized material if necessary so that its syntax and phrasing are not too close to those of a source.

§ Add parenthetical documentation where necessary to acknowledge the use of a source’s words or original ideas.

§ Add identifying tags where necessary to clarify the scope of the borrowed material or to differentiate material from the two sources.

§ Check every quoted passage once more to see if the quotation adds something vital to the paragraph. If it does not, summarize or paraphrase the source’s words instead.

STUDENT PARAGRAPH

In recent years, psychologists have focused on the idea that girls (unlike boys) face a crisis of self-esteem as they approach adolescence. Both Carol Gilligan and Mary Pipher did research to support this idea, showing how girls lose their self-confidence in adolescence because of sexist cultural expectations. Women’s groups have expressed concern that the school system favors boys and is biased against girls. In fact, boys are often regarded not just as classroom favorites but also as bullies who represent obstacles on the path to gender justice for girls. Recently, however, this impression that boys are somehow privileged while girls are shortchanged is being challenged.

Source 1

That boys are in disrepute is not accidental. For many years women’s groups have complained that boys benefit from a school system that favors them and is biased against girls. “Schools shortchange girls,” declares the American Association of University Women. … A stream of books and pamphlets cite research showing not only that boys are classroom favorites but also that they are given to schoolyard violence and sexual harassment.

In the view that has prevailed in American education over the past decade, boys are resented, both as the unfairly privileged sex and as obstacles on the path to gender justice for girls. This perspective is promoted in schools of education, and many a teacher now feels that girls need and deserve special indemnifying consideration. “It is really clear that boys are Number One in this society and in most of the world,” says Patricia O’Reilly, a professor of education and the director of the Gender Equity Center, at the University of Cincinnati.

The idea that schools and society grind girls down has given rise to an array of laws and policies intended to curtail the advantage boys have and to redress the harm done to girls. That girls are treated as the second sex in school and consequently suffer, that boys are accorded privileges and consequently benefit—these are things everyone is presumed to know. But they are not true.

—CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS, “THE WAR AGAINST BOYS”

Source 2

Girls face an inevitable crisis of self-esteem as they approach adolescence. They are in danger of losing their voices, drowning, and facing a devastating dip in self-regard that boys don’t experience. This is the picture that Carol Gilligan presented on the basis of her research at the Emma Willard School, a private girls’ school in Troy, N.Y. While Gilligan did not refer to genes in her analysis of girls’ vulnerability, she did cite both the “wall of Western culture” and deep early childhood socialization as reasons.

Her theme was echoed in 1994 by the clinical psychologist Mary Pipher’s surprise best seller, Reviving Ophelia (Putnam, 1994), which spent three years on the New York Times best-seller list. Drawing on case studies rather than systematic research, Pipher observed how naturally outgoing, confident girls get worn down by sexist cultural expectations. Gilligan’s and Pipher’s ideas have also been supported by a widely cited study in 1990 by the American Association of University Women. That report, published in 1991, claimed that teenage girls experience a “free-fall in self-esteem from which some will never recover.”

The idea that girls have low self-esteem has by now become part of the academic canon as well as fodder for the popular media. But is it true? No.

—ROSALIND C. BARNETT AND CARYL RIVERS, “MEN ARE FROM EARTH, AND SO ARE WOMEN. IT’S FAULTY RESEARCH THAT SETS THEM APART”

READING AND WRITING ABOUT THE ISSUE

Where Should We Draw the Line with Plagiarism?

Reread the At Issue box on page 353. Then, read the sources on the following pages. As you read these sources, you will be asked to answer questions and to complete some activities. This work will help you to understand the content and structure of the material you read. When you have read the sources, you will be ready to write an argumentative essay in which you take a position on the topic, “Where Should We Draw the Line with Plagiarism?”

SOURCES

PLAGIARISM LINES BLUR FOR STUDENTS IN DIGITAL AGE

TRIP GABRIEL

This article is from the August 1, 2010, edition of the New York Times.

At Rhode Island College, a freshman copied and pasted from a website’s frequently asked questions page about homelessness—and did not think he needed to credit a source in his assignment because the page did not include author information.

At DePaul University, the tip-off to one student’s copying was the purple shade of several paragraphs he had lifted from the web; when confronted by a writing tutor his professor had sent him to, he was not defensive—he just wanted to know how to change purple text to black.

And at the University of Maryland, a student reprimanded for copying from Wikipedia in a paper on the Great Depression said he thought its entries—unsigned and collectively written—did not need to be credited since they counted, essentially, as common knowledge.

Professors used to deal with plagiarism by admonishing students to give credit to others and to follow the style guide for citations, and pretty much left it at that.

But these cases—typical ones, according to writing tutors and officials responsible for discipline at the three schools who described the plagiarism—suggest that many students simply do not grasp that using words they did not write is a serious misdeed.

It is a disconnect that is growing in the internet age as concepts of intellectual property, copyright, and originality are under assault in the unbridled exchange of online information, say educators who study plagiarism.

Digital technology makes copying and pasting easy, of course. But that is the least of it. The internet may also be redefining how students—who came of age with music file-sharing, Wikipedia, and web-linking—understand the concept of authorship and the singularity of any text or image.

“Now we have a whole generation of students who’ve grown up with information that just seems to be hanging out there in cyberspace and doesn’t seem to have an author,” said Teresa Fishman, director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University. “It’s possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take.”

Professors who have studied plagiarism do not try to excuse it—many are champions of academic honesty on their campuses—but rather try to understand why it is so widespread.

In surveys from 2006 to 2010 by Donald L. McCabe, a co-founder of the Center for Academic Integrity and a business professor at Rutgers University, about 40 percent of 14,000 undergraduates admitted to copying a few sentences in written assignments.

Perhaps more significant, the number who believed that copying from the web constitutes “serious cheating” is declining—to 29 percent on average in recent surveys from 34 percent earlier in the decade.

Sarah Brookover, a senior at the Rutgers campus in Camden, N.J., said many of her classmates blithely cut and paste without attribution.

“This generation has always existed in a world where media and intellectual property don’t have the same gravity,” said Ms. Brookover, who at 31 is older than most undergraduates. “When you’re sitting at your computer, it’s the same machine you’ve downloaded music with, possibly illegally, the same machine you streamed videos for free that showed on HBO last night.”

“Online, ’everything can belong to you really easily.’”

Ms. Brookover, who works at the campus library, has pondered the differences between researching in the stacks and online. “Because you’re not walking into a library, you’re not physically holding the article, which takes you closer to ’this doesn’t belong to me,’” she said. Online, “everything can belong to you really easily.”

A University of Notre Dame anthropologist, Susan D. Blum, disturbed by the high rates of reported plagiarism, set out to understand how students view authorship and the written word, or “texts” in Ms. Blum’s academic language.

She conducted her ethnographic research among 234 Notre Dame undergraduates. “Today’s students stand at the crossroads of a new way of conceiving texts and the people who create them and who quote them,” she wrote last year in the book My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, published by Cornell University Press.

Ms. Blum argued that student writing exhibits some of the same qualities of pastiche that drive other creative endeavors today—TV shows that constantly reference other shows or rap music that samples from earlier songs.

In an interview, she said the idea of an author whose singular effort creates an original work is rooted in Enlightenment ideas of the individual. It is buttressed by the Western concept of intellectual property rights as secured by copyright law. But both traditions are being challenged. “Our notion of authorship and originality was born, it flourished, and it may be waning,” Ms. Blum said.

She contends that undergraduates are less interested in cultivating a unique and authentic identity—as their 1960s counterparts were—than in trying on many different personas, which the web enables with social networking.

“If you are not so worried about presenting yourself as absolutely unique, then it’s O.K. if you say other people’s words, it’s O.K. if you say things you don’t believe, it’s O.K. if you write papers you couldn’t care less about because they accomplish the task, which is turning something in and getting a grade,” Ms. Blum said, voicing student attitudes. “And it’s O.K. if you put words out there without getting any credit.”

The notion that there might be a new model young person, who freely borrows from the vortex of information to mash up a new creative work, fueled a brief brouhaha earlier this year with Helene Hegemann, a German teenager whose best-selling novel about Berlin club life turned out to include passages lifted from others.

Instead of offering an abject apology, Ms. Hegemann insisted, “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” A few critics rose to her defense, and the book remained a finalist for a fiction prize (but did not win).

That theory does not wash with Sarah Wilensky, a senior at Indiana University, who said that relaxing plagiarism standards “does not foster creativity, it fosters laziness.”

“You’re not coming up with new ideas if you’re grabbing and mixing and matching,” said Ms. Wilensky, who took aim at Ms. Hegemann in a column in her student newspaper headlined “Generation Plagiarism.”

“It may be increasingly accepted, but there are still plenty of creative people—authors and artists and scholars—who are doing original work,” Ms. Wilensky said in an interview. “It’s kind of an insult that that ideal is gone, and now we’re left only to make collages of the work of previous generations.”

In the view of Ms. Wilensky, whose writing skills earned her the role of informal editor of other students’ papers in her freshman dorm, plagiarism has nothing to do with trendy academic theories.

The main reason it occurs, she said, is because students leave high school unprepared for the intellectual rigors of college writing.

“If you’re taught how to closely read sources and synthesize them into your own original argument in middle and high school, you’re not going to be tempted to plagiarize in college, and you certainly won’t do so unknowingly,” she said.

At the University of California, Davis, of the 196 plagiarism cases referred to the disciplinary office last year, a majority did not involve students ignorant of the need to credit the writing of others.

Many times, said Donald J. Dudley, who oversees the discipline office on the campus of 32,000, it was students who intentionally copied—knowing it was wrong—who were “unwilling to engage the writing process.”

“Writing is difficult, and doing it well takes time and practice,” he said.

And then there was a case that had nothing to do with a younger generation’s evolving view of authorship. A student accused of plagiarism came to Mr. Dudley’s office with her parents, and the father admitted that he was the one responsible for the plagiarism. The wife assured Mr. Dudley that it would not happen again.

AT ISSUE: SOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING PLAGIARISM

1. Gabriel begins inductively, presenting three paragraphs of evidence before he states his thesis. Is this the best strategy, or should these examples appear later in his discussion? Explain.

2. In paragraph 5, Gabriel notes that “many students simply do not grasp that using words they did not write is a serious misdeed.” Is this his thesis statement? Does he take a position, or is he just presenting information?

3. Why, according to Gabriel, is plagiarism so widespread? Do you think the reasons he cites in any way excuse plagiarism—at least accidental plagiarism? Does Gabriel seem to think they do?

4. What is pastiche (para. 17)? What is a collage (25)? How does the concept of pastiche or collage apply to plagiarism? Do you see the use of pastiche in TV shows or popular music (17) as different from its use in academic writing? Why or why not?

5. Summarize Sarah Wilensky’s views (23—28) on the issue Gabriel discusses. Do you agree with her? Do you agree with Helene Hegemann’s statement, “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity” (22)?

6. Do you think the anecdote in paragraph 32 is a strong ending for this article? Does the paragraph need a more forceful concluding statement? Explain.

BAD IDEA ABOUT WRITING: PLAGIARISM DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED

JENNIFER MOTT-SMITH

This article appeared in Insider Higher Education on May 23, 2017.

“College Plagiarism Reaches All-Time High”

“Studies Find More Students Cheating, With High Achievers No Exception”

Headlines like these from the Huffington Post and the New York Times scream at us about an increase in plagiarism. As a society, we feel embattled, surrounded by falling standards; we bemoan the increasing immorality of our youth. Plagiarism, we know, is an immoral act, a simple case of right and wrong, and as such, deserves to be punished.

However, nothing is simple about plagiarism. In fact, the more we examine plagiarism, the more inconsistencies we find, and the more confusion.

How we think about the issue of plagiarism is clouded by the fact that it is often spoken of as a crime. Plagiarism is not only seen as immoral; it is seen as stealing—the stealing of ideas or words. In his book Free Culture, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig questions what it can possibly mean to steal an idea.

“I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I take it, you don’t have it. But what am I taking when I take the good idea you had to put a picnic table in the backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting it in my backyard? What is the thing that I am taking then?”

Lessig gets at the idea that, when a person borrows an idea, no harm is done to the party from whom it was taken. But what about loss in revenues as a form of harm? Surely there is no loss of revenues when a student plagiarizes a paper. From Lessig’s metaphor we can see that theft, and even copyright infringement, are not entirely apt ways to think about plagiarism.

But Lessig’s metaphor does not help us understand that, in academic writing, acknowledgment of sources is highly valued. Neither does it reveal that taking ideas and using them in your own writing, with conventional attribution, is a sophisticated skill that requires a good deal of practice to master.

There are at least three important things to understand about the complexity of using sources. First, ideas are often a mixture of one’s own ideas, those we read and those we discuss with friends—making it hard or even impossible to sort out who owns what. Second, writers who are learning a new field often “try out” ideas and phrases from other writers in order to master the field. That process, which allows them to learn, involves little or no deceit. And third, expectations for citing sources vary among contexts and readers, making it not only confusing to learn the rules but impossible to satisfy them all.

It is quite hard to separate one’s ideas from those of others. When we read, we always bring our own knowledge to what we’re reading. Writers cannot say everything; they have to rely on readers to supply their own contribution to make meaning. One difficulty arises when you read an argument with unnamed steps. As a good reader, you fill them in so you can make sense of the argument. Now, if you were to write about those missing steps, would they be your ideas or those of your source?

Writers may reuse the ideas of others, but surely they know when they reuse words, so should they attribute them? Perhaps not. Words are not discrete entities that can be recombined in countless ways, rather, they fall into patterns that serve certain ways of thinking, the very ways of thinking or habits of mind that we try to instill in students.

The fact is that language is formulaic, meaning that certain words commonly occur together. There are many idioms, such as “toe the line” or “cut corners” that need not be attributed. There are also many co-occurring words that don’t quite count as idioms, such as “challenge the status quo,” “it should also be noted that . . .” and “The purpose of this study is to . . .” that similarly do not require attribution. Those are called collocations. Student writers need to acquire and use a great number of them in academic writing. What this means is that not every verbatim reuse is plagiarism.

“Much research has shown that patchwriting is not deceitful and therefore should not be punished.”

Moreover, imposing strict rules against word reuse may function to prevent student writers from learning to write in their fields. When student writers reuse patterns of words without attribution in an attempt to learn how to sound like a journalist, say, or a biologist, or a literary theorist, it is called patchwriting. In fact, not only student writers but all writers patch together pieces of text from sources, using their own language to sew the seams, in order to learn the language of a new field.

Because of the complex way in which patchwriting mixes text from various sources, it can be extremely difficult to cite one’s sources. Despite this lack of attribution, much research has shown that patchwriting is not deceitful and therefore should not be punished. In fact, some scholars are interested in exploring how writing teachers could use the concept of patchwriting to help student writers develop their own writing skills.

The third reason that it is not always easy to acknowledge sources is that expectations for referencing vary widely and what counts as plagiarism depends on context. If, for instance, you use a piece of historic information in a novel, you don’t have to cite it, but if you use the same piece of information in a history paper, you do. Journalists typically do not supply citations, although they have fact checkers making sure their claims are accurate. In business, people often start their reports by cutting and pasting earlier reports without attribution. And in the academy, research has shown that the reuse of words in science articles is much more common and accepted than it is in the humanities.

In high school, student writers probably used textbooks that did not contain citations, and once in college, they may observe their professors giving lectures that come straight from the textbook without citation, cribbing one another’s syllabi and cutting and pasting the plagiarism policy into their syllabi. They may even notice that their university lifted the wording of its plagiarism policy from another institution!

In addition to those differing standards for different genres or fields of study, research has also shown that individual “experts” such as experienced writers and teachers do not agree whether or not a given piece of writing counts as plagiarism. Given such wide disagreement over what constitutes plagiarism, it is quite difficult, perhaps impossible, for student writers to meet everyone’s expectations for proper attribution. Rather than assuming that they are trying to pass off someone else’s work as their own and therefore deserve punishment, we should recognize the complexity of separating one’s ideas from those of others, mastering authoritative phrases and meeting diverse attribution standards.

While most people feel that plagiarism deserves punishment, some understand that plagiarism is not necessarily deceitful or deserving censure. Today, many writers and writing teachers reject the image of the writer as working alone, using (God-given) talent to produce an original piece of work. In fact, writers often do two things that are proscribed by plagiarism policies: they recombine ideas in their writing and they collaborate with others.

Interestingly, the image of the lone, divinely inspired writer is only a few hundred years old, a European construct from the Romantic era. Before the eighteenth century or so, writers who copied were respected as writers. Even today, rather than seeing copying as deceitful, we sometimes view it as a sign of respect or free publicity.

Today, millennial students often copy without deceitful intent. Reposting content on their Facebook pages and sharing links with their friends, they may not cite because they are making an allusion; readers who recognize the source without a citation share the in-joke.

In school, millennials may not cite because they are not used to doing so or they believe that having too many citations detracts from their authority. In either case, these are not students trying to get away with passing someone else’s work off as their own, and, in fact, many studies have concluded that plagiarism, particularly that of second-language student writers, is not done with the intent to deceive.

Despite these complexities of textual reuse, most faculty members nevertheless expect student writers to do their “own work.” In fact, student writers are held to a higher standard and punished more rigorously than established writers.

What is even more troublesome is that teachers’ determinations of when plagiarism has occurred is more complicated than simply noting whether a student has given credit to sources or not. Research has shown that teachers let inadequate attribution go if they feel the overall sophistication or authority of the paper is good, whereas they are stricter about citing rules when the sophistication or authority is weak. Furthermore, they tend to more readily recognize authority in papers written by students who are members of a powerful group (e.g., whites, native English speakers or students whose parents went to college). Thus, in some instances, plagiarism may be more about social inequity than individual deceit.

As we come to realize that writers combine their ideas with those of others in ways that cannot always be separated out for the purposes of attribution, that writers often reuse phrases in acceptable ways, that citing standards themselves vary widely and are often in the eye of the beholder, and that enforcement of plagiarism rules is an equity issue, the studies and articles panicking over plagiarism make less and less sense. In looking at plagiarism from the different perspectives offered by collaborative writers and today’s millennial student writers, we can see that much plagiarism is not about stealing ideas or deceiving readers.

Unless plagiarism is out-and-out cheating, like cutting and pasting an entire paper from the internet or paying someone to write it, we should be cautious about reacting to plagiarism with the intent to punish. For much plagiarism, a better response is to relax and let writers continue to practice the difficult skill of using sources.

AT ISSUE: SOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING PLAGIARISM

1. Many people, like law professor Lawrence Lessig (quoted in paragraph 3), see plagiarism as theft, but Mott-Smith disagrees. Why?

2. In paragraph 6, Mott-Smith introduces three key concepts to explain “the complexity of using sources.” In your own words, summarize these three ideas.

3. What does Mott-Smith mean when she says that language is “formulaic” (para. 9)? Why does she believe this characterization explains—or even excuses—some plagiarism?

4. Mott-Smith points out that expectations for citing sources can vary from one situation to another. For example, different instructors and different kinds of writing tasks may have different citation standards. Do you believe that the fact that there is so little agreement about what constitutes plagiarism means that some kinds of plagiarism should not be punished? Is this what Mott-Smith believes?

5. How are Mott-Smith’s ideas about student plagiarism like and unlike Richard Posner’s ideas (p. 375) about plagiarism in professional settings?

6. According to Mott-Smith, what is the difference between “out-and-out cheating” (22) and the kind of casual, inadvertent plagiarism that occurs more widely? How does she believe each of these two kinds of plagiarism should be dealt with? What do you think?

THE TRUTH ABOUT PLAGIARISM

RICHARD A. POSNER

This essay appeared in Newsday on May 18, 2003.

Plagiarism is considered by most writers, teachers, journalists, scholars, and even members of the general public to be the capital intellectual crime. Being caught out in plagiarism can blast a politician’s career, earn a college student expulsion, and destroy a writer’s, scholar’s, or journalist’s reputation. In recent days, for example, the New York Times has referred to “widespread fabrication and plagiarism” by reporter Jayson Blair as “a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper.”

In James Hynes’ splendid satiric novella of plagiarism, Casting the Runes, the plagiarist, having by black magic murdered one of the historians whom he plagiarized and tried to murder a second, is himself killed by the very same black magic, deployed by the widow of his murder victim.

“There is a danger of overkill.”

There is a danger of overkill. Plagiarism can be a form of fraud, but it is no accident that, unlike real theft, it is not a crime. If a thief steals your car, you are out the market value of the car, but if a writer copies material from a book you wrote, you don’t have to replace the book. At worst, the undetected plagiarist obtains a reputation that he does not deserve (that is the element of fraud in plagiarism). The real victim of his fraud is not the person whose work he copies, but those of his competitors who scruple to enhance their own reputations by such means.

The most serious plagiarisms are by students and professors, whose undetected plagiarisms disrupt the system of student and scholarly evaluation. The least serious are those that earned the late Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin such obloquyⁱ last year. Popular historians, they jazzed up their books with vivid passages copied from previous historians without quotation marks, though with footnote attributions that made their “crime” easy to detect. (One reason that plagiarism, like littering, is punished heavily, even though an individual act of plagiarism usually does little or no harm, is that it is normally very difficult to detect—but not in the case of Ambrose and Goodwin.) Competing popular historians might have been injured, but I’m not aware of anyone actually claiming this.

Confusion of plagiarism with theft is one reason plagiarism engenders indignation; another is a confusion of it with copyright infringement. Wholesale copying of copyrighted material is an infringement of a property right, and legal remedies are available to the copyright holder. But the copying of brief passages, even from copyrighted materials, is permissible under the doctrine of “fair use,” while wholesale copying from material that is in the public domain—material that never was copyrighted, or on which the copyright has expired—presents no copyright issue at all.

Plagiarism of work in the public domain is more common than otherwise. Consider a few examples: West Side Story is a thinly veiled copy (with music added) of Romeo and Juliet, which in turn plagiarized Arthur Brooke’s The Tragicall Historye of Romeo and Juliet, published in 1562, which in turn copied from several earlier Romeo and Juliets, all of which were copies of Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Paradise Lost plagiarizes the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Classical musicians plagiarize folk melodies (think only of Dvorak, Bartok, and Copland) and often “quote” (as musicians say) from earlier classical works. Edouard Manet’s most famous painting, Déjeuner sur I’herbe, copies earlier paintings by Raphael, Titian, and Courbet, and My Fair Lady plagiarized Shaw’s play Pygmalion, while Woody Allen’s movie Play It Again, Sam “quotes” a famous scene from Casablanca. Countless movies are based on books, such as The Thirty-Nine Steps on John Buchan’s novel of that name or For Whom the Bell Tolls on Hemingway’s novel.

Many of these “plagiarisms” were authorized, and perhaps none was deceptive; they are what Christopher Ricks in his excellent book Allusions to the Poets helpfully terms allusion rather than plagiarism. But what they show is that copying with variations is an important form of creativity, and this should make us prudent and measured in our condemnations of plagiarism.

Especially when the term is extended from literal copying to the copying of ideas. Another phrase for copying an idea, as distinct from the form in which it is expressed, is dissemination of ideas. If one needs a license to repeat another person’s idea, or if one risks ostracism by one’s professional community for failing to credit an idea to its originator, who may be forgotten or unknown, the dissemination of ideas is impeded.

I have heard authors of history textbooks criticized for failing to document their borrowing of ideas from previous historians. This is an absurd criticism. The author of a textbook makes no claim to originality; rather the contrary—the most reliable, if not necessarily the most exciting, textbook is one that confines itself to ideas already well accepted, not at all novel.

It would be better if the term plagiarism were confined to literal copying, and moreover literal copying that is not merely unacknowledged but deceptive. Failing to give credit where credit is due should be regarded as a lesser, indeed usually merely venial, offense.

The concept of plagiarism has expanded, and the sanctions for it, though they remain informal rather than legal, have become more severe, in tandem with the rise of individualism. Journal articles are no longer published anonymously, and ghostwriters demand that their contributions be acknowledged.

Individualism and a cult of originality go hand in hand. Each of us supposes that our contribution to society is unique rather than fungibleⁱⁱ and so deserves public recognition, which plagiarism clouds.

This is a modern view. We should be aware that the high value placed on originality is a specific cultural, and even field-specific, phenomenon, rather than an aspect of the universal moral law.

Judges, who try to conceal rather than to flaunt their originality, far from crediting their predecessors with original thinking like to pretend that there is no original thinking in law, that judges are just a transmission belt for rules and principles laid down by the framers of statutes or the Constitution.

Resorting to plagiarism to obtain a good grade or a promotion is fraud and should be punished, though it should not be confused with “theft.” But I think the zeal to punish plagiarism reflects less a concern with the real injuries that it occasionally inflicts than with a desire on the part of leaders of professional communities, such as journalists and historians, to enhance their profession’s reputation.

Journalists (like politicians) have a bad reputation for truthfulness, and historians, in this “postmodernist”ⁱⁱⁱ era, are suspected of having embraced an extreme form of relativism and of having lost their regard for facts. Both groups hope by taking a very hard line against plagiarism and fabrication to reassure the public that they are serious diggers after truth whose efforts, a form of “sweat equity,” deserve protection against copycats.

Their anxieties are understandable; but the rest of us will do well to keep the matter in perspective, realizing that the term plagiarism is used loosely and often too broadly; that much plagiarism is harmless and (when the term is defined broadly) that some has social value.

AT ISSUE: SOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING PLAGIARISM

1. According to Posner, how do most people define plagiarism? How is the definition he proposes different from theirs? Do you think his definition is too broad? Too narrow?

2. Why does Posner believe that the plagiarisms committed by students and professors are the most serious? How would you argue against this position?

3. How do the examples Posner cites in paragraphs 6 and 7 strengthen his argument? Do you agree that the examples he gives here constitute plagiarism? Why or why not?

4. Explain the connection the author makes in paragraph 15 between judges and plagiarism. (Note that Posner himself is a federal judge.)

5. Why, according to Posner, do journalists and historians think plagiarism should be punished severely?

6. According to Posner, “the truth about plagiarism” is that “much plagiarism is harmless and (when the term is defined broadly) that some has social value” (para. 18). Does the evidence he presents in this essay support this conclusion? What connection do you see between this position and his comments about the rise of individualism and the “cult of originality” in paragraphs 12—14?

ⁱ Abusive language

ⁱⁱ Replaceable

ⁱⁱⁱ Postmodernism is a school of criticism that denies concepts such as scientific certainty and absolute truth.

WHEN PLAGIARISM IS A PLEA FOR HELP

HELEN RUBINSTEIN

This article originally appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education on March 30, 2016.

That summer night, at a dinner table surrounded by writing teachers, the plagiarism stories were hard to stop. There was the freshman who, given the writing prompt “Why Do I Procrastinate?,” pasted in Yahoo Answers. I told about the senior who turned in an essay paraphrasing a scholarly article synonym by synonym, word by word. The winning story was the student who asked permission to study a novel written by his professor and then turned in an essay that copied text from the book jacket, including a line from the author bio: “She lives in Chicago with her two sons and their cat.”

There was one I didn’t tell. It’s not a dinner-table story. It might not even be a story about plagiarism. For a while, every time I talked about it, I had to begin by saying, “I’m glad I’m not the kind of person who could feel responsible for something like this.” What I meant was that people who believe the death of someone else could be their own fault are usually deluding themselves into a sense of omnipotence. “I’m glad I’m not the kind of person who could feel responsible,” I repeated to myself. I needed that to be true.

My student—I’ll call her “Susan”—dressed well. Big sweaters she’d tuck a knee into. Long hair, pale face, pretty. Twice that September, she had stayed after class to discuss the recommended reading—she’d actually done the recommended reading. When she was sick, she emailed: “Hello Professor! . . . My residence hall is currently experiencing ’the flu’ epidemic and just my luck I believe I have it now.” She was a freshman, keen to succeed: “Do you think I should soldier through the sickness and come to class anyway? . . . I’ve never been sick in college before and your class happens to be the only mandatory one I must attend.”

It wasn’t just the flu that was spreading that semester—so was the plagiarism. One weekend I plowed through 36 first drafts, and Susan’s was not the first or the last to be of sketchy origin in that stack. “Why are there so many smokers on campus?,” her paper began—innocently enough. Then she turned to the topic of e-cigarettes, citing numbers and statistics without quote marks or attribution. None of it was in answer to the actual assignment. And it didn’t take long to find the sources she’d copied.

Susan had already missed several classes because of illness, and sent me countless emails—messages with subject lines that shouted “Hospital” and “Emergency Please Read.” “Just focus on getting better,” I would respond. “Don’t worry about the class.” In another email she mentioned she had been “diagnosed with anxiety” recently and was on a “low dose of anxiety medication.” She was absent again on the day I handed back the drafts and gave a speech about plagiarism for the benefit of the six or eight students I had caught. Caught—the word betrays how I sat hunched over those essays, feeling hunted even as I hunted.

My stern warning surprised students. Some didn’t realize the word “plagiarism”—with its trill of alarm—might describe what they’d done. Some didn’t know plagiarism would “count” in a draft. I didn’t report any of those students to the administration, but I did deduct points—proportionate to the level of plagiarism in each case—that would reduce the students’ final grade. All they had to do to avoid further trouble was not plagiarize the final paper.

Shortly after, I got an inquiry from the dean’s office about Susan, identifying her by her student number. She’d apparently been having difficulties in other classes as well: Had I noticed any problems? I mentioned the plagiarism incident and noted that she was coming to class again yet performing erratically. The dean’s office advised me to “follow protocol”—make sure that she understood what she had done wrong and that she did not repeat it.

But Susan did repeat it. She had thanked me for being so “tolerant, considerate, and kindhearted” after the first incident but when she turned in her final paper, I was stunned to find that it, too, was plagiarized. I sent Susan a message expressing my dismay and telling her that I would have to both fail the essay and submit a report on her plagiarism to the administration.

It’s too easy, as a teacher, to let plagiarism propel you toward protocol, that means of moving forward without thinking. It’s too easy to feel that you must turn the tables, prevent the student from pulling one over or getting away with it—all of those terrible clichés that hide the reality of how plagiarism, to a teacher, is the rare instance in which the student seizes power.

“How can you tell if a student is just stressed or out-of-control?”

After emailing Susan, I met with a colleague to seek his advice. Once the door was closed, he told me not to bother with protocol or with reporting the student. It won’t be worth the trouble, he said—not worth the onerousness of photocopying, scanning, providing evidence, and navigating the bureaucratic near-legalese.

I was still deciding whether to follow his advice when Susan emailed a long, dense reply: “I will not be dragged down because one single professor does not like me. … How can I respect a teacher that has done nothing but bully me and find any loophole to make me fail? . . . I DO NOT DESERVE THIS PUNISHMENT.” And: “I will use every ounce of my power to set this straight.”

I read it again and again. At dinner with friends that night, I described the email and quoted its subject line: “This Has Gone Far Enough.”

“She’s crazy,” someone said. I had no way of knowing if that was the case. How can you tell if a student is just stressed or out-of-control? But the truth was: I did feel like I’d been pressuring Susan—with my feverish photocopying, my petty collection of evidence, and now this ha-ha dinnertime story. “Report the plagiarism,” my friends insisted. “Follow protocol. Cover your ass.”

We all want to write about the times we succeed in the classroom. But what about the times we teach poorly? What about the times we fail?

After she died, her essay—with the big green F in my handwriting circled and my comments scrawled across its cover page—sat on a chair in my house for weeks. One day I flipped it over. Eventually I moved it under the chair, then under a table. I’m not supposed to keep student work. Nor am I supposed to throw it away. Nor am I supposed to show it to Susan’s parents without her permission. Nor would I ever, ever return this essay to them, with its angry-scrawled F.

A week later, I received the news of her death in an email from the university, with the words “deceased student,” followed by her student ID number. (Protocol.) Then came another email from the colleague I had consulted for advice: “Thank God you didn’t report her and don’t have that now on your conscience.”

Except, as far as Susan knew, I had reported her. The notice didn’t tell me how she died. It explained that she withdrew from college the day after she’d emailed me, and passed away six days after that. Her death seemed to confirm my worst suspicions of myself: that I am heartless, overly bound by some cockeyed ideal of fairness, not in touch enough with my students’ human selves. I trembled when I had to tell a room of 18-year-olds that their classmate had died, but I wasn’t sure whether that was because I feared I would cry, or because I feared I wouldn’t.

Three weeks later, the semester ended. The internet had informed us that Susan died from an overdose of an illegal recreational drug, though I had little idea what to do with that information, what it might mean. The class shared a moment of silence in her memory. And then, after everyone else had left, one student approached my desk. “I can’t stop thinking about Susan,” he confessed. “I feel so guilty. She asked me where to buy pot and I told her.”

I saw then that, in her wake, Susan had left behind a whole universe of people who felt responsible for her death. “It’s not your fault,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster—hoping to persuade both the young man and myself that it was egotistical to believe any of us have that much power.

But we long for such power. I see the longing in my tendency to experience plagiarism as personal—about me or my class. I see it in my nervousness when faced with a student’s power to deceive—even though plagiarism is, more than anything, an expression of a student’s powerlessness.

Plagiarism is a gag on the voice, a paper bag over the face. So what if—the next time our students plagiarize—we tried harder to actually see them? What if we could understand plagiarism as an expression of exhaustion, of distress, maybe even a plea for help?

The thing that haunts me, after all, is not Susan’s rage in her last message to me, but my own rage in my last message to her. The angrily scrawled F is a guilty conscience I don’t want to forget. I didn’t kill Susan—I don’t have that kind of power. But I did have the power to fail her. And that F is a reminder that the next time a student hides her thinking behind someone else’s, what I’d like to do is not fail her, but try to help her not fail.

AT ISSUE: SOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING PLAGIARISM

1. This essay appeared in a publication for college instructors and administrators. Given that this is her audience, do you think Rubinstein’s purpose here is to explain or justify her actions? To create awareness of a problem? Or, does she expect her readers to propose—or even to take-some kind of action?

2. What attitude toward plagiarism do the professors discussed in the opening paragraph seem to have? How might you explain that attitude?

3. Why does Rubinstein say that the incident she will discuss “might not even be a story about plagiarism” (para. 2)? If the story isn’t about plagiarism, what is it about?

4. According to Rubinstein, what exactly did Susan do that constituted plagiarism? What other details does Rubinstein give readers about Susan, and why? For example, why does Rubinstein enumerate the many emails she received from Susan?

5. In paragraph 9, Rubinstein says, “It’s too easy, as a teacher, to let plagiarism propel you toward protocol, . . . “ What does she mean? Is she questioning her own actions here? Explain.

6. In paragraph 13, Rubinstein asks, “How can you tell if a student is just stressed or out-of-control?” Does she answer this question? How would you answer it?

7. What steps do you think colleges—or individual instructors—could take to avoid a situation like the one Rubinstein describes? How do you suppose Rubinstein might react to your suggestions? Why?

8. Whom (or what) do you blame for the incident’s tragic outcome? Why?

9. If Rubinstein were going to write an argumentative essay for the same publication taking a position on how academic plagiarism should be addressed, what would her position be? Suggest a thesis statement for this essay.

ESSAY MILLS: A COARSE LESSON IN CHEATING

DAN ARIELY

This essay originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times on June 17, 2012.

Sometimes as I decide what kind of papers to assign to my students, I worry about essay mills, companies whose sole purpose is to generate essays for high school and college students (in exchange for a fee, of course).

The mills claim that the papers are meant to be used as reference material to help students write their own, original papers. But with names such as echeat.com, it’s pretty clear what their real purpose is.

Professors in general are concerned about essay mills and their effect on learning, but not knowing exactly what they provide, I wasn’t sure how concerned to be. So together with my lab manager Aline Grüneisen, I decided to check the services out. We ordered a typical college term paper from four different essay mills. The topic of the paper? Cheating.

Here is the prompt we gave the four essay mills:

“When and why do people cheat? Consider the social circumstances involved in dishonesty, and provide a thoughtful response to the topic of cheating. Address various forms of cheating (personal, at work, etc.) and how each of these can be rationalized by a social culture of cheating.”

We requested a term paper for a university-level social psychology class, 12 pages long, using 15 sources (cited and referenced in a bibliography). The paper was to conform to American Psychological Assn. style guidelines and needed to be completed in the next two weeks. All four of the essay mills agreed to provide such a paper, charging us in advance, between $150 and $216 for the paper.

“What we got back from the mills can best be described as gibberish.”

Right on schedule, the essays came, and I have to say that, to some degree, they allayed my fears that students can rely on the services to get good grades. What we got back from the mills can best be described as gibberish. A few of the papers attempted to mimic APA style, but none achieved it without glaring errors. Citations were sloppy. Reference lists contained outdated and unknown sources, including blog posts. Some of the links to reference material were broken.

And the writing quality? Awful. The authors of all four papers seemed to have a very tenuous grasp of the English language, not to mention how to format an essay. Paragraphs jumped bluntly from one topic to another, often simply listing various forms of cheating or providing a long stream of examples that were never explained or connected to the “thesis” of the paper.

One paper contained this paragraph: “Cheating by healers. Healing is different. There is harmless healing, when healers-cheaters and wizards offer omens, lapels, damage to withdraw, the husband-wife back and stuff. We read in the newspaper and just smile. But these days fewer people believe in wizards.”

This comes from another: “If the large allowance of study undertook on scholar betraying is any suggestion of academia and professors’ powerful yearn to decrease scholar betraying, it appeared expected these mind-set would component into the creation of their school room guidelines.”

And finally, these gems:

“By trusting blindfold only in stable love, loyalty, responsibility, and honesty the partners assimilate with the credulous and naive persons of the past.”

“Women have a much greater necessity to feel special.”

“The future generation must learn for historical mistakes and develop the sense of pride and responsibility for its actions.”

It’s hard to believe that students purchasing such papers would ever do so again.

And the story does not end there. We submitted the four essays to WriteCheck.com, a website that inspects papers for plagiarism, and found that two of the papers were 35 percent to 39 percent copied from existing works. We decided to take action on the two papers with substantial plagiarizing and contacted the essay mills requesting our money back. Despite the solid proof we provided to them, the companies insisted they did not plagiarize. One company even threatened to expose us by calling the dean and saying we had purchased the paper.

It’s comforting in a way that the technological revolution has not yet solved students’ problems. They still have no other option but to actually work on their papers (or maybe cheat in the old-fashioned way and copy from friends). But I do worry about the existence of essay mills and the signal that they send to our students.

As for our refund, we are still waiting.

AT ISSUE: SOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING PLAGIARISM

1. Consider the title of this essay. What does the word coarse mean? What does it suggest in this context?

2. What is an essay mill? Look up the word mill. Which of the definitions provided applies to the word as it is used in the phrase essay mill?

3. Why does Ariely decide to investigate the services provided by essay mills? What does he want to find out? Is he successful?

4. What does Ariely conclude about the four companies he surveys? Does he provide enough evidence to support his conclusion? If not, what kind of evidence should he add?

5. In paragraph 15, Ariely says, “It’s hard to believe that students purchasing such papers would ever do so again.” Given the evidence Ariely presents, how do you explain the continued popularity of essay mills?

6. What information does Ariely provide in his conclusion? Do you think he is departing from his essay’s central focus here, or do you think the concluding paragraph is an appropriate and effective summary of his ideas? Explain.

VISUAL ARGUMENT: TERM PAPERS FOR SALE ADVERTISEMENT (WEB PAGE)

AT ISSUE: SOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING PLAGIARISM

1. The web page above is from a site that offers papers for sale to students. What argument does this web page make? What counter-argument could you present?

2. Identify appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos on the TermPaperWriter.org page. Which appeal dominates?

3. Study the images of students on the page. What message do these images convey?

4. Unlike the TermPaperWriter.org page, many other sites that offer papers for sale include errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Search the web for some other sites that offer papers for sale. What errors can you find? Do such errors weaken the message of these ads, or are they irrelevant?

5. A different site offering similar services promises its papers are “100% plagiarism free.” Does this promise make sense? Explain.

TEMPLATE FOR WRITING AN ARGUMENT ABOUT PLAGIARISM

Write a one-paragraph argument in which you take a position on where to draw the line with plagiarism. Follow the template below, filling in the blanks to create your argument.

To many people, plagiarism is theft; to others, however, it is not that simple. For example, some define plagiarism as ; others see it as . Another thing to consider is . In addition, . Despite these differences of opinion, plagiarism is often dealt with harshly and can ruin careers and reputations. All things considered,.

EXERCISE 11.4 DEFINING PLAGIARISM: REVIEW

Discuss your feelings about plagiarism with two or three of your classmates. Consider how you define plagiarism, what you believe causes it, whether there are degrees of dishonesty, and so on, but focus on the effects of plagiarism—on those who commit it and on those who are its victims. Then, write a paragraph that summarizes the key points of your discussion.

EXERCISE 11.5 WRITING AN ESSAY

Write an argumentative essay on the topic, “Where Should We Draw the Line with Plagiarism?” Begin by defining what you mean by plagiarism, and then narrow your discussion down to a particular group—for example, high school or college students, historians, scientists, or journalists. Cite the sources on pages 366—85, and be sure to document the sources you use and to include a works-cited page. (See Chapter 10 for information on documenting sources.)

EXERCISE 11.6 REVIEWING THE ELEMENTS OF ARGUMENT

Review the four pillars of argument discussed in Chapter 1. Does your essay include all four elements of an effective argument? Add anything that is missing. Then, label the elements of your argument.

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS: USING SOURCES RESPONSIBLY

1. Write an argument in which you take a position on who (or what) is to blame for plagiarism among college students. Is plagiarism always the student’s fault, or are other people (or other factors) at least partly to blame?

2. Write an essay in which you argue that an honor code will (or will not) eliminate (or at least reduce) plagiarism and other kinds of academic dishonesty at your school.

3. Reread the essays by Richard Posner and Jennifer Mott-Smith in this chapter. Then, write an argument in which you argue that only intentional plagiarism should be punished.

4. Do you consider student plagiarism a victimless crime that is best left unpunished? If so, why? If not, how does it affect its victims—for example, the student who plagiarizes, the instructor, the other students in the class, and the school?