Harris, The Plagiarism Handbook

Harris, Robert A. The Plagiarism Handbook: Strategies for Preventing, Dectecting, and Dealing with Plagiarism. Los Angeles: Pyrczak Publishing, 2001.

Harris, whose book focuses on undergraduate plagiarism, argues that plagiarism is on the rise due to Internet resources and a lack of attention to the proper use and attribution of sources. He believes that plagiarism should be attacked at many angles, including writing plagiarism-resistant research assignments, using Internet tools to detect plagiarism, following plagiarism cases through the system to make it a serious offense for students, and giving students quizzes about source use and plagiarism and handouts to teach them how to cite sources. Harris argues that prevention is key to preventing both intentional and unintentional plagiarism. His book contains cartoons (that the teacher is allowed to copy and use in class) to start discussions with students about plagiarism.

Quotable Quotes

“each kind of theft” (1)

“how committed you are to fighting it” (1)

“simple rule” – charts, decision charts students use to decide to cite or quote, trying to simplify the citation decision

Notable Notes

gives 16 reasons for plagiarism – none to do with the difficulty of understanding sources: students are lazy, indifferent, careless, have no motivation, poor choices, procrastination, liars

teaching students about plagiarism:

• give explicit definition
• keep it positive – don’t assume all are potential cheats
• show examples of proper use and plagiarism
• discuss note-taking
• dispel attribution myths
• discuss why plagiarism is wrong
• discuss benefits for students for citations
• show them paper mill sites
• tell them the consequences
• signed integrity statement

Gilmore, Plagiarism

Gilmore, Barry. Plagiarism: Why It Happens, How to Prevent It. Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2008.

Gilmore, a high school English and social studies teacher writing to other high school and middle school teachers, argues that plagiarism is best prevented by turning to education and prevention: teaching students how to avoid plagiarism and changing school culture to dissuade students from plagiarizing. His book contains many “Top 10″ charts for teachers to turn to, such as a top 10 signs a student text is plagiarized, reasons why students plagiarize, and reasons why teachers don’t address plagiarism. Gimore argues that the tools teachers need to teach students in order to prevent plagiarism from happening include teaching them how and why to cite, how to take notes, and how to search on the internet. He does not advocate making every assignment a highly personal “plagiarism-proof assignment,” arguing that those types of assignments don’t always address a teacher’s pedagogical goals. Instead, he suggests spending a large amount of time on the writing process. He also believes that schools should model behavior that prevents plagiarism: having known, followed honor codes, encouraging intellectual risk taking and revision, and expecting good things out fo boys, athletes, and traditionally underachiveing students.

Quotable Quotes

“The culture of learning…is the key to combating plagiarism, whether it happens as a mistake or a crime” (138).

“What you can do to prevent plagiarism is teach the right skills, design the right assignments, and create the right atmosphere. Neglect these areas, and you resign yourself to either ignoring plagiarism or to spending your time angrily rooting out and punishing offenders” (74).

“Once a teacher is reduced to the role of source dectector, he has already lost an educational battle” (5).

Notable Notes

don’t focus on catching students and criminalizing them – but not addressing what’s really the problem with researched assignments – the work involved in using sources

Ritter, Yours, Mine, Ours

Ritter, Kelly. “Yours, Mine, Ours: Triangulating Plagiarism, Forgery, and Identity.” JAC 27:3/4 (2007) 731-742.

Ritter’s essay is responding to an article from the previous issue of JAC, “Toward a New Content for Writing Courses: Literacy, Forgery, Plagiarism, and the Production of Belief,” by Amy E. Rollibard and Ron Fortune. Rollibard and Fortune argue that forgery and plagiarism are connected by the central idea of belief, and when students whole-text plagiarize, they do so not as an act of anti-writing but as an act of writing to forge certain authorial identities and to produce belief in a Bourdieuian way (through cultural capital legitimization.) Ritter unpacks their argument and draws connections between how Robillard and Fortune position college student acts of forgery and plagiarism (read by the culture as criminal) and younger student acts of forgery and plagiarism (read by the culture as mimicism, imitation, and part of the learning process.) College students, Ritter argues, must negotiate the slippery slide between the expectations of the college classroom and academic community and what they have relied on throughout their childhood. Ritter goes on to argue that students whole-text plagiarize not because they want to forge an authorial identity in individual assignments, but rather, they place value in the end result of all those assignments – the degree – and the identity that the degree forms. Ritter also contends that neither process pedagogy nor portfolios can prevent students from deliberately, knowingly plagiarizing.

Quotable Quotes

“how students resitst authorship vis-a-vis whole-text plagiarism” (741)

Notable Notes

how do we construct student plagiarists? What labels do we give them? What’s behind those names?

Ritter: whole-text student plagiarizers aren’t always just lazy – they are smart, industrious, purposefully drawing on the identites and cultural capitals of other authors, imitating those they admire and want to be connected to

simulation is more than copying

student texts already have little cultural value – plagiarism and forgery make them have a negative value

DeSana, Preventing Plagiarism

DeSana, Laura Hennessey. Preventing Plagiarism: Tips and Techniques. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2007.

DeSana, a high school English teacher and part-time writing instructor at NYU, argues that students need to learn how to do original, subjective, interested research, not just retell what their sources say. She relies on an literature-based writing assignment sequence that begins with freewriting responses to a primary source, then analyzing and adding secondary sources. Her goal is for students to be the dominant voice in their thesis-driven researched arguments, controlling their source use with effective quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. She believes that this kind of assignment sequence, coupled with a range of plagiarism-proof topics that dissuade students from relying on online cheat sources and recycled papers, will teach students to respect the research process and not plagiarize. She has a two-part definition of plagiarism: source of language plagiarism and source of information plagiarism, both equally important to address and curtail through the proper use of citation systems and explicit instruction in paraphrase. She gives teachers seven tools and steps for identifying plagiarism in their students’ papers, often positioning the students as savvy, lethargic, potential cheats who try to pull one over on the teacher because of their Internet expertise.

Quotable Quotes

“For those of us who are vigilant, we will enter the library as dectectives on the trail of a more intelligent theif” (97), on the importance of checking print-based sources in libraries (like secondary sources, CliffsNotes) for student plagiarism attempts

“Individuality self-destructs in endless mirroring” (111), doesn’t see much good in imitation

“We must begin to teach them how to exert control over the chaos – how to shape and academic argument” (7).

“We have to require the higher level of thinking that is achieved through the simultaneous processes of analysis and synthesis” (6).

The retelling that happens in a book report “is useless for several reasons – foremost among them is that it is a shabby mimicking of the original. No one can write Poe’s ‘The Fall of the Usher’ as well as Poe, nor should another writer attempt to” (4).

“Reporting is a retelling of ideas found; it is not an analysis of ideas found” (1)

“As educators, we must teach students to realize that they are required to have their own insights into source materials. They must engage in a dialogue with the sources they consult. Without this dialogue their research is meaningless and becomes a mere exercise of collecting and organizing” (1)

Notable Notes

absolute binary between research and retelling

works cited only includes one thing from rhet/comp, a article from Written Communication about text/source use and ESL students

one of her plagiarism prevention techniques she dubs “non sequitor approach” – having students turn in copies of online study guides to provide them for comparison with their essays

prescriptive writing process and sequence = freewriting, notetaking, outlining, writing

retelling (summaries) are not, in DeSana’s opinion, objective pieces of writing, not subjective researched positions

focus is on how to teach students to write thesis-driven, argumentative, taking-a-stand research essays

Johnson-Eilola and Sebler, Plagiarism, Originality, Assemblage

Johnson-Eilola, Johndan and Stuart A. Selber. “Plagiarism, Originality, Assemblage.” Computers and Composition 24 (2007): 375-403.

Johnson-Eilola and Selber argue for a problem-solving view of writing as assemblage rather than a performance and product-oriented understanding of composing. They place the concept of assemblage in conversation with discussions of plagiarism and originality, both which would undervalue and even criminalize assemblage (remix, collage) writing. They show how practices of assemblage are common in other fields and contexts, like website design, architecture, blogging, and institutional and workplace writing. Writing as assemblage, a postmodern understanding of creativity, limits the ethical and legal panic over plagiarism and the sloppy, unnecessary paraphrasing and allows students to use all available resources (and acknowledge those sources) to make their argument and solve problems.

Quotable Quotes

“If we take away that hierarchy, we remove the impulse for students to lie about it. If a piece of the assemblage is valued primarily for its function rather than its place in a hierarcy, students are no longer pushed so hard to hide the citations for their sources” (400). – students are afraid to have too much of their text in quotes or cited because then it doesn’t look like their original thought is in there (even though they selected, assembled.)

“By untangling the academic function from the legal function [of citation and paraphrase], we open up assemblages and remixes to examination in terms of our academic and pedagogical goals” (399).

“What if we put the emphasis on problem-solving, originality be damned?” (380).

“creating assemblages requires the same rhetorical sophistication as any text” (391).

Notable Notes

Christopher Alexander pattern language – these design patterns are “an ongoing conversation between local and global” and “The possible rhetorical moves of a pattern language are a reservoir, drawn on by an architect to address problems in specific contexts, remixed into an assemblage. The assemblage works at the intersection of principle and concrete.” (395).

selection, choice, local context

change in assessment practices to question whether the assemblage solves problems (instead of the Romantic understanding of single original author)

students are taught this hierarchy – others’ work and words can only be used as support and are secondary to their own original thoughts

21st century remix culture is all around us

Howard, Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty

Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty.” College English 57.7 (Nov 1995): 788-806.

University regulations and policy statements on plagiarism need to be revised to reflect the field’s complex understandings of authorship, composing, and plagiarism. These policy statements, which try to simplify and stabilize the dynamic, complex concept of plagiarism, are problematic because they uphold the Romantic ideal of the single, solitary author, they couch plagiarism solely on moral (not pedagogical) terms, and they define plagiarism through textual features without any consideration for a writer’s intent or context. Howard includes a sample plagiarism policy that she wrote that more accurately reflects the continuum of motivations and practices of plagiarisms, with a range of appropriate responses for patchwriting, failure to cite, and outright cheating and plagiarism.

Quotable Quotes

“The cumulative, interactive nature of writing that makes impossible the representation of a stable category of authorship and hence a stable category of plagiarism” (791).

“Sanctioning rather that criminalizing an important stage of students’ learning processes” (802).

Notable Notes

two sources to look at: Thomas Mallon’s Stolen Words – treats plagiarism through lens of solitary author – and Hull, Glynda and Mike Rose. “Rethinking Remediation: Toward a Social-Cognitive Understanding of Problematic Reading and Writing.” Written Communication 6.2 (1989): 139-154. – argues for imitation in comp pedagogy

why is plagiarism so offensive? It undermines what we believe in composition – that writing is discovery, expressionism, an understanding of the self

moral lens so that universities have to prosecute plagiarism: theft, integrity, secrets, crime, honor, citizenship

university policies don’t line up with current understandings and theories of authorship – collaborative, digital

Price, Beyond “Gotcha”

Price, Margaret. “Beyond ‘Gotcha!’: Situating Plagiarism in Policy and Pedagogy.” CCC 54.1 (Sept 2002): 88-115.

Price analyzes and compares three plagiarism policies (UMass, Michigan, and Howard’s suggested policy from “Plagiarisms”) to illustrate ways in which university plagiarism policies might better reflect the field’s complex understanding of plagiarism. Since she advocates for situated, local policies, she offers no universal guidelines for universities to adopt, rather focusing on making both the writing of the policy and the teaching of plagiarism open, dynamic, ongoing and dialogue-centered processes that involve students and faculty. Policies need to express the contextual and contested nature of seemingly stable terms like “common knowledge,” “facts,” “your own work/words,” and “sources.” She shows how the policies could be read and understood as institutional genres, and their composing processes (no individual author, borrowing from other policies) contradicts the expectations they state for students.

Quotable Quotes

“We need to stop treating plagiarism like a pure moral absolute (“Thou shalt not plagiarize”) and start explaining it in a way that accounts for the shifting features of context” (90).

“A situated understanding of plagiarism will preserve, not harm academic values of honesty and integrity” (90).

“Plagiarism is a dynamic and locally mediated idea, not an unmoving, absolutely knowable rule” (101).

Notable Notes

leave spaces (literally) in the plagiarism policies for students to write in definitions, examples, questions – use this in class discussions

have students underline on a peers’ paper quotes, paraphrases, and own work in different colored pencils

university policies state expectations for both the academic community at large and novice students

Valentine, Plagiarism as Literacy Practice

Valentine, Kathryn. “Plagiarism as Literacy Practice: Recognizing and Rethinking Ethical Binaries.” CCC 58.1 (Sept 2006): 89-109.

Plagiarism needs to be understood and treated more broadly as a literacy practice rather than a black-and-white ethical binary, for the ethical lens through which we talk about plagiarism casts our students’ identities in particular ways they cannot dictate and does not validate certain kinds of student writing and work. Valentine uses an extended example of Lin, a 3rd year international PhD student who was accused of (and admitted to) plagiarism on a literature review. Valentine sees his lack of citation and original argument not as a criminal, unethical, and dishonest act, but rather as a an unawareness of American graduate education citation and literacy expectations. It is important to see the bigger picture teach plagiarism, then, not just as an ethical problem – one in which all students are in danger of being dishonest – but as a negotiation of cultural and social contexts and literacy practices.

Quotable Quotes

“Plagiarism is a literacy practice…something that people do with reading and writing” (89).

“Plagiarism becomes plagiarism as a part of a practice that involves participants’ values, attitudes, and feelings as well as their social relationships to each other and to the institutions in which they work” (89-90).

“The problem with teaching citation and plagiarism as rule following is that it is not enough for students to know the textual practices of citation. Rather, students need to know citation and plagiarism as literacy practices – as complicated ways of making meaning” (105).

Notable Notes

Butler – performative identites – you have your identity by what you do (students’ identities are formed by whether or not they adhere to textual citation practices and expectations)

students live in fear of plagiarizing. They aren’t safe – even honest students can unknowingly trip up and plagiarize, then labeled as dishonest (fear of going to jail as a kid)

ethical morality (Zygmunt Bauman) – being moral because you are following a rule, not because you are acting on what you think is right…no personal individual moral responsibility or choices needed

Robillard, We Won’t Get Fooled Again

Robillard, Amy E. “We Won’t Get Fooled Again: On the Absence of Angry Responses to Plagiarism in Composition Studies.” College English 70.1 (Sept 2007): 10-31.

Robillard argues that teachers’ affective response to plagiarized student texts – justified anger – needs to be acknowledged and accepted by the discipline and used as way 1. to tap into a full understanding of plagiarism as a relationship between a writer and a reader and 2. to engage the public in conversations about writing and plagiarism. Teachers surpress their anger because they have conflicting identities as writing teachers: the caring, nuturing, student-centered, critical-pedagogy empowering teacher and the objective expert on writing and the teaching of writing. Plagiarism challenges and threatens this split identity, and the discipline has sought solutions for this problem by finding pedagogical solutions and explanations (patch-writing, summarizing.) Robillard uses teachers’ blogs to show how teachers are expressing their anger outside traditional disciplinary venues.

Quotable Quotes

“Writing teachers become dehumanized, disembodied readers of student work” (28) – what happens when their anger is denied

“We cannot have it both ways; we cannot create an identity dependent on a relationship to students that is emotionally supportive at the same time that we maintain our affectless response to plagiarism or suspected plagiarism” (27).

“To deny anger when students we care about plagiarize is to deny our humanity” (27).

“The absence of disciplinary sponsored anger in response to plagiarism thwarts our efforts to make ourselves heard in public discussions about writing in this country” (13).

“anger as social rather than individual, as political rather than neutral” (17)

“The near erasure of teachers’ anger in composition’s scholarship on plagiarism must be read as symptomatic of a disciplinary discourse that, despite much important research to the contrary, persists in suppressing the role of the reader – here, the embodied reader – in interpreting plagiarized texts” (11)

Notable Notes

the anger somewhat stems from the feeling that you were so close to missing it, to not catching plagiarism (18)

this widespread anxiety leads to an obsession to prevent plagiarism

the public doesn’t respect us (Tucker Carlson on Becky Howard’s plagiarism article) because we don’t seem angry about plagiarism, we shouldn’t keep suppressing this “collective rage” (29)

widespread denial of emotions in the academy

Colvin, Another Look at Plagiarism in the Digital Age

Colvin, Benie B. “Another Look at Plagiarism in the Digital Age: Is It Time to Turn in My Badge?” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 35.2 (December 2007) 149-158.

Colvin is uncomfortable with no-tolerance university plagiarism policies that respond punitively before pedagogically. After having a first-generation college student leave the university after she accused him a plagiarism, Colvin revisits how writing teachers approach issues of authorship, plagiarism, patchwriting, and the use of digital technologies. She does not want to abandon Turnitin, but says she will use it now as a tool that will have pedagogical effects, as she can use the results to teach her students to be better readers, researchers, and consumers.

Quotable Quotes

“All I did was reinforce that he was behind the academic fence without a key” (150)

Notable Notes

Harvard case – Blair Hornstine denied admission over plagiarism charges in her high school papers