Plagiarism.

When I was teaching at the community college, I had a student inform me during a discussion about a paper assignment that he had never been told that he had to put a quotation from a source in quotes.  Now, of course, he could have been lying–maybe he was–but, he was a special needs student, a rather competent one I found, and I have to wonder whether  he didn’t just fall through the cracks because teachers didn’t want to deal with it plagiarism and a special needs student.

It raises some interesting questions about plagiarism.  How is it taught?  Is it taught?  Do students actually learn what they are suppose to do in this regard and how often do we assume they know when they’re clueless?

Of course, there are clearly accidental infractions of plagiarism, such as is described in the article below–an instance where a student understands what plagiarism is, but was not sufficiently experienced in the field to recognize that the descriptive expression used was unique to the author and not common parlance in the discipline.

I was a plagiarist.  (I was not, it’s the article title.)

There has been some depressing stuff coming out of campuses in recent years when it comes to cheating and dishonesty, but let’s consider the difficulty of the concept for a moment.  Inexperienced students may struggle to find the balance between referencing someone else’s work and avoiding plagiarism.  Many early “research papers” coming out of middle school or junior high are little more than book reports, where the student has used one or two sources total.  However, since they are not billed or assigned as book reports, students think they are doing research papers when they are in fact essentially plagiarizing.  I have noticed this to be the case even when multiple sources are required.

How well do teachers correct this?  The student is clearly learning, but yet is not handing in original work.  More to the point, how does the student’s next teacher deal with this type of work after a precedence is set?  Sometimes educators are so gratified to see that students have learned something that this sort of mistake goes uncorrected.  This is especially common for students who do not engage in or grasp the detective work involved in history–they regurgitate a scholar’s argument and have no idea that this is not a history research paper.  The repercussions for plagiarism are often harsh, particularly in colleges and universities where it is policy to black ball the student as a plagiarist–a label attached to their transcript–but even in high school often result in automatic failure for at least that assignment.

Notice that this is not the same as a student going to the publisher’s website and copying and pasting the reviews into a word document and handing it in; this is not lifting a Wikipedia article; this is not copying a page from an author without giving credit and then removing the page from the book–all of which do and have happened in clear cases of dishonest, deliberate plagiarism.

So, I am interested in what people think.  Take the polls below:

Brush off the Dust’s Best of the Web, 11/7 – 11/10/11

1. It Started Digital Wheels Turning

A mathematician may have conceived of the computer in the 1830s!  Scientists intend to build his conception and give it a run!  If you like the history of technology, this is a must-read!  Click on the heading above to read this NY Times article.

2. Giotto Devil: Found in the Detail of Renaissance Fresco

Art history fans should take a peek at this article from the International Business Times: mostly of photographs taken of the now-renovated frescoes by Giotto in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.  After restoring the work–you may recall a recent earthquake damaged the basilica–a new figure emerged in the clouds of one of Assisi’s and Giotto’s most famous frescoes.  To see the image more clearly, click on title above the picture.

3. Birth of Edmond Halley

On November 8, 1656, the man who discovered and predicted a comet that returned every 75 years was born.  Edmond Halley was part of a rich scientific community in Enlightened Europe.  Read about his other contributions and his times in this short article from History Today by clicking on the headline above.

4.  He found history, and N.H. wants it back

Here’s an interesting case!  At an estate sale in Minnesota, a man purchased the find of a lifetime: copper, pre-Revolutionary War currency plates from the colony of New Hampshire.  N.H. would, however, like to contest the claim of ownership.  It will be interesting to see where this goes!  In the meantime, read more by clicking the heading above.

5. I was a plagiarist

The author of this post, albeit at a Canadian university, writes about an experience of unintended plagiarism.  She raises some truly valid points.  Her actions did not include cutting and pasting reviews from the publisher’s site, copying a Wikipedia entry or paying someone to write her paper, rather she used an expression she thought was scholarly jargon, but actually unique to the author.  How should we respond to plagiarism and how well is it taught?  To read it click on the title above.

6. The Berlin Wall Came Down

In honor of that day here is some historical perspective:

7. History Heroes: Marc Bloch

Marc Bloch was a historian whose own history is as interesting as any of the compelling works he wrote.  His life was ended by the Nazis.  Read a story of true heroism (as opposed to all the recent scandals of enabling) by clicking on the link above from Smithsonian’s “Past Imperfect” blog.

8. Visualizations and Historical Arguments

Regarding the issue of writing history in the digital age, John Thiebault writes about visualizations in historical arguments.  He argues that the ability to turn statistics into visualizations, cartograms, that communicate historical evidence has greatly improved with computer technologies.  Read this important analysis of visual communication in argumentation.

9. DocsTeach: Veterans’ Day

From the National Archives’ DocsTeach Website you can search “veterans” and narrow further by era to look at documentary evidence of veterans.  Check it out and browse around by clicking the heading above.

A tech blog — helping students write better and think creatively

Today, is a quick post about some of the teacher-assist websites out there that I am going to try this semester.  At the end of the semester, I will write a follow-up and let you know how it went.

Turnitin.com

The purpose of this site is to facilitate grading based on a question of the paper’s originality.  This is intended to catch deliberate plagiarism and accidental or careless paraphrasing, while improving citation practices.  I plan on using this for my students’ first drafts on their final projects.  The site also has a built-in peer review program, but I’ve decided to use the site below and assign the peer-review project for the second draft.

For the time-being, I am using the two separate sites to help keep the drafts separate in my mind and because I want to play with both before I commit to one or the other.  If you are a fan of paperless or paper-minimal, the site appears to work with you because one simply uploads the papers and the site does its thing.  It also has a grading feature, which I am a little loathe to use–maybe if I was teaching larger numbers and no TA I would consider it, but it seems like a cop-out and I don’t see how it saves you time grading on content.

SWoRD

At the University of Pittsburgh (archrival to my hometown school, WVU . . . but, we’ll let that pass), a website has been developed for peer-review facilitation.  SWoRD is short for “Scaffolded Writing and Reviewing in the Discipline” and was constructed by a multi-discipline team to set up a platform for peer-review projects.  The site conveniently supplies professional papers that have been written to ascertain the value of such a program.

My intent is to use this program for the final paper project after they have submitted a rough draft to me for content and originality (see above section), this will be the second draft before the final submission.  Following the site’s advice, the reviewing by the other students will be graded, as well.  Wisely, the instructor creates the rubric.

As someone who always tries to teach history as authentically as possible–not just content, but the field–I like the idea that the students are engaging the project on the same level and by the same methods as the pros do.  Also, I am a believer that being forced to read someone else’s writing improves one’s own reading and writing skills.

MyFakeWall.com

So, I stole this from History Tech (who it looks like snagged it from someone else), but I definitely plan on using this as extra credit or an in-class assignment!!  MyFakeWall.com creates a fake FaceBook wall, which offers some great possibilities to one’s teaching repertoire–particularly for us historians!  While there is a lot of stupid.. er.. I mean “fun” stuff on the website (which can be distracting), there is also already some fun history content stuff on their–so, don’t let your students steal any of it!  One good example is Martin Luther’s Wall.

I think there are a lot of good opportunities, here!