Plagiarism Blues

I still remembered how disappointed I felt when news reports began coming out about Martin Luther King Jr.'s consistent and pervasive plagiarism.

Stanford History Professor Clayborne Carson, the Director of the King Papers Project wrote the following passage:

"When our research was published in June 1991 in the Journal of American History, the article made clear that King's plagiarism was a general pattern evident in nearly all of his academic writings. Although the plagiaries in the dissertation were less egregious than the press reports had suggested, they were more extensive throughout King's papers than had been reported. We found that instances of textual appropriation can be seen in his earliest extant writings as well as his dissertation. The pattern is also noticeable in his speeches and sermons throughout his career."

Sigh. I am still shocked.  And I am also still shocked by how prevelant plagiarism is among college students.  Must be my naive genes.

'Tis the time of year when academiblogs begin to bemoan the hassles of having to do google searches and the painful process of confronting students with their cheating. 'Tis so very discouraging.

Bardiac recently wrote a sensitive and compelling story about noticing, trying to understand, and then deal with a student's plagiarism. He raises questions about how to handle situations in which plagiarism may be based on incompetence rather than an egregious wish to mislead. He wrote:

"My general read on the student is that he's earnest and needy, smart but behind in some ways, not as attentive in class as I'd like (I consistently have to repeat instructions for his benefit). I don't think he was trying to fake the paper. I think he made some mistakes....

So now, what to do? I can clearly demonstrate the lack of quotation, and technically it's plagiarism. But it's petty plagiarism, if that makes sense. It's the kind of first year student mistake that deserves a little generosity and instruction rather than seriously punitive measures....

Considering how much I hate plagiarism, I generally take a teacherly stance towards it when I can, and make sure the student recognizes the problem and corrects it. At least that's what I do when the work seems misguided rather than purposefully deceitful."

In Raining Cats and Dogma, Ryan M. Claycom wrote about a colleague confronting a plagiariser. He begins:

"A close friend of mine just confronted a student about a plagiarism case, and he met her with tears, and a more affecting story than usual. While she did not regret her actions on the matter, she felt bad about that moment of triumph she felt, that twinge of glee at catching a dishonest student, which made the tears she witnessed later all the harder to contend with.

This is a place I've been a lot, and I've come to a point where I think that I just have to understand that I can't have it both ways: that I can't be passionate about my teaching, and yet emotionally impervious to those moments when my passion and my values are trod upon."

Hmmmm. And what does it mean that your friend the academic coach is moping about intellectual stealing when she routinely uses google to snatch and post images taken and owned by others?  Naughty? Pot calling the kettle black? (That ol' saying which I only learned last decade was racist.)

Comments

[Edie]

The anecdote about the crying plagiarist reminds me of any number of crying politicians we've endured over the past few years. They aren't crying because they're sorry they did it; they're crying because they're sorry they were caught and now they can't do it anymore.

On the other hand, kids have it pretty rough coming into college from inadequate public high schools. Most do not know how to write an academic paper. Many do not even know the parts of speech and how to form a logical argument.

And you are quite correct to point out that the significance and very meaning of "intellectual property" has been transformed and thrown into ambiguity by the Internet.

[Lisa]

I don't know that the professor should feel that badly about her "aha" moment with the plagiarizer that she then regretted. Confronting bad behavior sometimes results in blubbing. Emotions are a fact of life. And chances are good, the rush of discovery that she felt at confirming the plagiarism is the same "whee" she gets when she discovers something else as well--researchers are detective-like by nature.

I tend to chew students for plagiarism and thus there is lots of blubbing. Big box of Kleenex in the office. Part of the job.

[academic coach]

hmmm. There is the ah-ha of discovering plagiarism --- which seems to be a very depressing, angry response --- Oh Sh*t. Now I have to deal with this. sigh
Then, what I thought was being described was the Hah! I got you! small pleasure of seeing the bad guy caught.
For me, neither of these compare to the Ah Hah of discovering a new idea or of capturing something in reasonable prose.

[sftr]

I think that plagiarism, even when minor, needs to be addressed. It doesn't mean you have to deduct points or knock down grades, but it has to be pointed out and discussed. If it is a blatant lifting of words, it's easy to talk about. I think it's the lifting of ideas/concepts that is a little bit trickier to deal with. I personally don't believe that any one person has complete ownership of an idea because I don't believe that any one person is the only person who has thought about a particular concept. I do, however, believe in creating intellectual islands around concepts that include all of the people who have discussed, published, etc. an idea or theory. An important part of creating these "islands" is properly citing/including the names of those people who came before you. This helps address the issue of "well, I didn't use their exact words--I used their idea but made it my own in my own words". That is a grey area of plagiarism that is much easier to comprehend if you make people let go of individual ownership and think more in the framework of group ideas. It also makes more clear the idea of "when in doubt, cite".

That's just my own personal take, and I realize that others may feel differently.

[Lisa]

See, AC, I don't take plagiarism personally, so it's not like I have a Javert-type feeling of "nabbing" a wrong-doer and feeling better myself. I do have a "Yay, I don't have to have spend any more time googling on this" feeling, which is a relief. I don't have any illusions that I am morally superior to the kid that gets caught with hand in the cookie jar (or the internet jar). I've done my fair of stupid/self-destructive/dishonest shit in life, and one mistake, even a dishonest one, does not define a person for me. Bad behavior, yup, you get your kick in the pants (just as i have mine routinely booted).

I am an at Honor Court school, although honor violations for everybody but the cadets are treated pretty lightly. I give students a choice: we can go to the Honor Court, or we can handle it. In theory, I am not supposed to do that; I am supposed to refer everything to the honor court, but if I did that, I would do nothing else, ever, with my time. No, plagiarism is not that common...our honor court process is just THAT time-consuming. So I sit down with the student, ask them why they did what they did, and then we talk about how self-destructive cheating ultimately is, because you can get yourself royally fired and/or disgraced if you do this on your job. You are stealing from your friends and colleagues in the class as well as from the author and yourself. I give them the option of taking a zero or redoing the work for 1/2 the original credit.

I think sftr has a good point in helping students see how they are working in bodies of knowledge can help them understand how to use and cite words fairly.

[russianviolets]

I'm with Edie above. I actually feel gleeful if I can make them cry after they assumed that I'm stupid and tried to sneak one by me. But then again, I'm evil. :-)

[academic coach]

oh, yeah, russian violets, we all know how evil you are. Why do you think we *adore* your posts?

One of the reasons that I'm glad that I teach grad students and not undergrads, and one reason I'm glad that I don't have to assign papers or tests, is that I never have to deal with this issue - or spend time with honor courts (bleh!) or googling phrases. Plus I don't have to grade papers (whew!)

If I did need to deal with plagiarism, I think that I would get "a Javert-type feeling of "nabbing" a wrong-doer and feeling better myself."

[Lisa]

Well, it depends. Satisfaction can of course be had if this student has been a pain in the ass all semester. ;-).

[Bardiac]

Thanks for the kind words about my post, AC.

I think there's an additional twist that we professors (ok, me, anyways) sometimes ignore, and that's modeling citation behavior. I've used bits from my universities' handbooks on plagiarism for YEARS, but only in the past three years (or so) have I actually properly cited those bits on my syllabus.

I don't think modeling is the one and only thing that's going to make a student not plagiarize, but I think we need to show them (more than once or twice) that acknowledging someone else's words/ideas/data is important by doing it consistently in front of them. Now when we go over the syllabus and I talk about appropriate citation and plagiarism, I can at least stress how important it is by showing them that I need to do it too.