What Is Plagiarism and Why Is It a Big Deal?
People in our culture wear proudly the corporate logos and designer labels of
what they consume or of what they aspire to consume. The economy of the academic
world, however, is based upon what people produce. Researchers, students, and
scholars coin the currency of this world through research and reason; they
produce through intellectual effort, and what they produce is their property.
When students try to pass off the intellectual work of others as their own, they are stealing. Plagiarism is a grave breach of Gordon State College’s Academic Dishonesty Policy, and whether it is unintentional or intentional, it carries serious consequences that can include being forced to leave the college. Most definitions of plagiarism include the following ideas:
1. Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional verbatim copying of someone else’s work.
2. Plagiarism is the representation of someone else’s ideas as one’s own.
3. Plagiarism includes the failure to attribute ideas to their owners or creators.
4.
Plagiarism includes copying material or failing to attribute ideas from any
source such as a website, encyclopedia, or dictionary.
The convention is to put the exact words of others in quotation marks, or, in
the case of longer quotes, indent the words of others in block format. In both
cases, the author of the words should be made clear. Similarly, one must always
give proper attribution to the ideas of others, even if one has summarized or
paraphrased those ideas. Students who are unsure of whether a piece of writing
constitutes plagiarism should check with their instructor.
Below are some examples cited in M.L.A. format.
Please keep in mind that an instructor will likely ask students to use a
particular citation style that could include information in addition to the page
number.
1. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence
[sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.
The above example is the preamble to the Constitution of the United States. It
has no quotation marks around it, and it is not cited. If it were to appear in a
student paper in the way that it does here, it would constitute plagiarism.
2. The framers of the Constitution of the United States clearly explain the purpose for the document. In the preamble, they note that they want to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” (2).
The above example shows how students should anchor quotes into one of their own
sentences, and the quotation marks make it clear that many of the words are
those of someone other than the student who wrote the passage.
3. The citizens of the United States give these reasons for the improved government
structure they have devised: to maintain justice, to create domestic peace, to
support national defense, to foster prosperity, and to secure liberty (2).
The sentence above paraphrases the preamble of the Constitution of the United
States, and it would, therefore, still need to be properly cited since the ideas
it contains belong to the framers and not to the student who wrote the
paraphrase. A paraphrase includes
all of the main ideas of a particular passage.
4. The preamble to the United States Constitution outlines a broad purpose for the document that includes important values the citizens of this nation all share.
The sentence above is a summary, and it still must be properly cited since it
contains the ideas of the Constitution’s framers. Students who summarize
material put it into their own words, condensing it while still maintaining the
key concepts.
Plagiarism, whether intentional or not, is never excusable. It is a form of
academic dishonesty, and according to the Gordon State College Catalog:
1.
Assign a grade of F for the assignment and/or require remedial action by the
student.
2.
Assign a grade of 0 for the assignment and/or require remedial action by the
student.
3.
Assign a failing grade in the course.
4. Refer the matter to the Dean of the Faculty.
In
addition, after having dealt with the act of academic dishonesty, the faculty
member should send a brief memorandum to the Vice President of Student Affairs
identifying the student, the infraction, and the resolution.
Though certainly plagiarism violates the principles of personal and academic
integrity, it also short-circuits the learning process. Writing papers in
college is about making thinking visible, not simply compiling information from
a number of sources. The papers students write in college are a form of
knowledge production, not knowledge packaging. Writing and thinking are in many
ways the same, and students learn more when they actively analyze, synthesize,
and evaluate ideas. Especially since the academic economy is based on knowledge
production, college instructors look for original, well thought-out work that
fully addresses the guidelines of an assignment. Importantly, students who
engage fully in this process learn more than those who treat their education as
a showroom where only the final product is important. Possessing a fine car, for
example, in no way testifies to an ability to produce one. The best students do
not come to Gordon State College for the product of a grade or degree: they come
here to engage in the process of learning, the process of knowledge production.
The grades and the degree only represent the process; they are not the product
one works for, but simply symbols of it. The purpose of writing a paper in
college, then, is to engage in the process of researching and thinking ideas
through. The artifact—the paper one turns in—is simply a visible manifestation
of that process. If there is no evidence of the process, there is no value to
the product.
Writing is hard work, and sometimes students plagiarize because they have put an
assignment off until the last minute. The way to maximize the learning in any
course is to begin paper assignments as soon as possible and work on them over a
long period of time. Deep intellectual engagement and the revision it leads to
will yield academic achievement. If an assignment requires research, go to the
library early, engage in the joy of discovering the ideas of others, and make
the intellectual connections that are the hallmark of the truly educated.
Collusion and Collaboration
Collusion is unauthorized collaboration wherein one receives assistance beyond
the norm; an individual assignment must be the work of an individual and not a
collaboration between that individual and others. If authorship of a work
or demonstrated mastery of an applied skill can be attributed to others beyond
the individual student, then collusion has occurred. It is appropriate to
seek another’s help in developing one’s skills; it is inappropriate to have
another person apply those skills on one’s behalf.
Collusion
We
all remember the middle school science fair where some of the students clearly
had parents deeply involved in their projects. The projects were just too well
conceived and executed for that level of competition, and that involvement gave
those students an unfair advantage. More importantly, though, that parental
involvement might have significantly undermined the discovery and learning
process of the students. The project might have been well-executed, but its
purpose is student learning, not display.
College-level writing assignments are always about student learning. Remember,
writing in college is about making thinking visible. While the finished product
is important, the primary purpose is the learning it manifests. That is why, for
example, college writing assignments mostly ask students to apply what they have
read in situations calling for analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
Collusion is cooperation with one or more people for a deceitful purpose. When
it comes to writing college-level papers, it marks a boundary students never
want to cross, and usually it refers to a student receiving a significant amount
of help on a project, especially if that help intentionally or unintentionally
deceives an instructor about the student’s ability.
Collaboration
Occasionally, college students might be asked to collaborate on a project.
Almost always a collaborative assignment calls for students to engage in a
series of critical conversations, and all will make a significant contribution.
Since writing is form of communication, writing in general, of course, is a
conversation that usually involves input from a number of individuals.
Professional writers and scholars usually seek input about their work, but the
key difference is that they are not attempting to deceive anyone about their
ideas or their abilities. The intellectual burden of producing a text always
rests with the writer.
Collaboration can be helpful to learning. For example, if having a roommate read
a paper leads the writer to being more actively involved in the writing process,
then that creates a learning situation. If, however, the roommate simply marks
up the paper and the writer uncritically incorporates changes, then no learning
has occurred. Similarly, if a student has a parent “fix” the grammar errors in a
paper, then the student has learned nothing. On the other hand, if the parent
says, “it looks like comma splices are an issue in this paper,” then the student
has the opportunity to learn how to address the issue. Similarly, the writing
tutors at the Student Success Center engage in collaborative exchanges with
students in order to further their learning and develop their processes for
producing college-level written work. They are not a “fix-it” shop, and students
who see a tutor are looking for sincere feedback to help them learn rather than
receive an easy grade. While collusion short-circuits the student’s ability to
develop the critical capabilities necessary to college success, a truly
collaborative writing project can lead to deeper learning for everyone involved.