I learned most of these citing practices in high school. In my school, great care was taken to ensure that credit was given where credit was due, and there were serious repercussions for any misconduct on the matter. We always had to use footnotes for research papers, and we always had to cite any books or websites that we used.
What was new, however, was the need to cite class notes in a paper. I had never seen this before and had never even considered it because I never used my notes to write papers. In general I just used sources that provided facts without analysis and drew my own conclusions.
Another surprising facet of plagiarism was the need to know whether or not one is plagiarizing. If the material that can be used to write a paper is fairly limited, this does not present a problem. However, if the database of knowledge is larger, the probability that one is plagiarizing someone, somewhere goes up rapidly. Because of this, I am glad to know that there are ways for me to argue that my work is actually my work. This can take the form of presenting drafts (so those ugly, illegible, scribbled-out first drafts have more than one use. Yay!) and possessing thorough knowledge about writing the paper.
My personal opinion on plagiarism and the citation systems is mixed. On the one hand, I believe that acknowledging the work of others is a critical part of the progression of ideas and academic knowledge. On the other hand, I feel that the current regulations surrounding citations unjustly prey upon simple mistakes. I think that there should be a difference between accidentally hitting the quotation mark button twice and blatantly copying the work of another. There is a difference between taking something seriously and taking something too far.
Patrick,
ReplyDeleteIt’s good to know that a lot of this stuff was covered in your high school. You’ve got a leg up on your classmates. This issue is super-important, and the more exposure that you get to what’s-plagiarism-and-what’s-not will undoubtedly benefit you in the long run.
Regarding your opinion on finding a “gray area” (my words) in committing plagiarism—I think that most folks that are well-tuned into the debate can see this. There’s a huge difference between consciously and unconsciously using someone’s work, and the issue gets further complicated by everything from a teacher’s/student’s expectations for assignments, the relative “weight” of a paper, the level of the student, and the student’s prior education on plagiarism. If this sounds complicated, it is.
That’s probably the single biggest takeaway from graduate school—nothing’s simple or cut and dry. It’s a wide sky of gray… but hey, plenty of it’s interesting, right?
Good luck at your arts’n’crafts festival this weekend, brother!
Zack