No matter who you are — R&B singer
Truth Hurts or Hamilton College President Eugene M. Tobin —using
someone else’s material can have serious consequences. Like
the $500 million lawsuit for the "Addictive" songstress,
who was sued for using an unlicensed sample of "Thoda Resham
Lagta Hai" by the Indian artist Lata Mangeshkar; or a resignation
from President Tobin, who did not attribute his sources properly
in speeches.
The actions by Hurt and Tobin are both
tantamount to plagiarism, which is defined in the Webster’s
New Universal Dictionary as "the use of or close imitation
of the language or thoughts of another author and the representation
of them as your own." But what happens here, at SAIC, if a
student is accused of a similar action, plagiarism? The answer is
that it depends.
While some schools have honor codes and/or strict
policies on cheating or plagiarism, this is not the case at SAIC.
In the student handbook under Rules of Conduct, students are advised
not to engage in certain actions including "dishonesty, such
as cheating, plagiarism, or knowingly furnishing false information
to the School." If a student is caught cheating or plagiarizing,
there are sanctions that could include admonishment, an oral reprimand;
a warning in writing; loss of privileges; suspension; or expulsion.
But these sanctions are only possibilities. Felice Dublon, dean
of Student Affairs, says that punishment is usually "up to
the instructor." Dublon has not personally participated in
many plagiarism cases, possibly only three or four in her 17 years
at SAIC. Usually, the professor confronts the student and either
gives that person a chance to rewrite, or the student is failed.
However, there is no set policy concerning plagiarism
and that is exactly what concerns some professors at SAIC.
At a recent Liberal Arts departmental meeting,
Barbara Guenther, Chair of Liberal Arts, said that plagiarism was
a "concern of a number of teachers. They’re getting more
and more information from the Internet that has not been attributed
correctly." Guenther added, "There are levels of plagiarism.
Usually, plagiarism is not intended." Sometimes, with first-year
students,"it’s their first writing course and maybe they
didn’t get that [instruction on how to attribute correctly]
in high school."
According to Guenther, at this same liberal arts
faculty meeting, two subcommittees were created. One is aimed at
preventing plagiarism by creating both guidelines for teachers in
the department as well as a general handout that instructors can
pass out to students explaining departmental policy on plagiarism.
"Our point is to try to prevent [plagiarism] and if it’s
due to lack of knowledge, we want to address that."But for
those students who are more deliberate in their plagiarism, the
second subcommittee plans on selecting the best software available
to help professors detect plagiarism, Guenther explained.
While having guidelines and standards in the Liberal
Arts department might prove helpful, liberal arts instructor Pamela
Barrie says,"I feel there should be a school standard."
Berrie believes that questions about a school’s academic integrity
are damaging. "It hurts the school and the other students to
have the academic standards questioned."
Barrie, who has taught at SAIC for 20 years, says,
"I’ve had [incidents of] plagiarism since I began teaching.
It’s always been a problem. I used to have students plagiarizing
from Cliff Notes. What’s different now is the ease of access
both for them and for me. I can detect plagiarism more easily. Before,
if I suspected a student, I’d have to spend time in the library.
Now I can just type in a search phrase [into search engines like
Google.]."
Is plagiarism that prevalent among students? According
to the Center for Academic Integrity (CAI), which is affiliated
with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, "On
most campuses, over 75 percent of students admit to some cheating.
In a 1999 survey of 2,100 students on 21 campuses across the country,
about one-third of the participating students admitted to serious
test cheating and half admitted to one or more instances of serious
cheating on written assignments.
According to the CAI, the problem with plagiarism
is just as serious in high school: “A study of almost 4,500
students at 25 schools, conducted in 2000/2001, suggests cheating
is also a significant problem in high school — 74 percent
of the respondents admitted to one or more instances of serious
test cheating and 72 percent admitted to serious cheating on written
assignments. Over half of the students admitted they have engaged
in some level of plagiarism on written assignments using the Internet.”
Perhaps plagiarism has increased with ease of
access, as Barrie surmises. Students now can search for not only
information on certain topics on the internet, but can also search
both free and fee-based sites that provide previously written essay
papers.
Plagiarism may be a problem in academic writing,
but what about conceptual writing? What about art? In Associate
Professor Beth Nugent’s Ouvoir de Litérature Potentielle
(Oulipo) class, MFA writing students address some of the issues
that the literary group Oulipo examined, including “questions
of authorship, ‘inspiration,’ the uses of literature.”
Nugent explains some of the ideas behind her class,
“Writers are so concerned with originality and ownership of
... a plot or idea or phrase or sentence ... I’ve asked them
to challenge that.” Some of the class’s assignments
have included creating centos, which use lines and material from
pre-existing text. Oulipo students have plagiarized the work of
well-known authors, classmates’ work, their own work, and
one student plagiarized a section of Nugent’s own writing.
The idea is to “Re-work, or if you’re being facetious,
‘improve,’ already existing text,” Nugent said.
Nugent noticed that plagiarism assignments bothered
some of her students. There was the idea that “it’s
not really writing” and there was the concern: “Why
should someone get credit if he didn’t do the work?”
Nugent also noted, “In some ways, plagiarism
is a good way to be aware of how capitalism works. How we are organized
around ownership and reward. ... It’s a good thing for young
writers to go all out and plagiarize. See what it feels like. See
how it reconfigures ideas of ownership.”
Nugent finds some of the exercises helpful. She
believes that plagiarism helps apprentice writers “to let
go of certain constraints you aren’t aware you have.”
Nugent also raised certain questions: “How much is plagiarism?
Half a sentence? A whole sentence? An idea?”
How much constitutes plagiarism? And when
is it acceptable? In an MFA writing class, in which students are
trying to develop into professional writers? For freshman students
who are trying to learn how to attribute sources properly in a research
paper? Clearly, the issue of borrowing or “improving”
is more complex than simply cutting and pasting someone else’s
words from an essay web site into a student paper. But who will
decide what constitutes plagiarism and what the consequences will
be? Professors and students alike wait to see.