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What is plagiarism?

What is plagiarism?. Dr Perry Share Institute of Technology Sligo NFETLHE 25 April 2014. Overview of presentation. What is plagiarism? The cultural context Plagiarism and writing practices Institutional responses and assessment Discussion. Plagiarism is. What do you think?.

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What is plagiarism?

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  1. What is plagiarism? Dr Perry Share Institute of Technology Sligo NFETLHE 25 April 2014

  2. Overview of presentation • What is plagiarism? • The cultural context • Plagiarism and writing practices • Institutional responses and assessment • Discussion P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  3. Plagiarism is . . . • What do you think? P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  4. Plagiarism is . . . • passing off someone else’s work, whether intentionally or unintentionally, as your own for your own benefit(Carroll 2002, p. 9) • an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward (Turnitin) (www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  5. Plagiarism is . . . • Cheating (a very serious issue) • A crime (linguistic origins ‘kidnap’, ‘plunder’; ‘fraud’; ‘theft’) • An infringement of Intellectual Property Rights [IPR] (C16) • A moral outrage (‘dirty’, ‘lazy’, ‘corruption’, ‘betrayal’) • Universal? (Donald MacCabe) • Not new • A global issue (international education) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  6. Plagiarism is . . . • Part of popular culture (Share 2005; 2010) • Instrumental in many contexts (ditto) • Indicative of ‘dumbing down’, decline of ‘standards’ (numerous) • A question of ethics (Briggs 2003) • A linguistic approach to text production (Pecorari 2010) • A ‘fuzzy concept’ (Pecorari 2010, p. 35) • A problem? For whom? (and also an opportunity!) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  7. Plagiarism is . . . According to lecturers: • copying of one student’s work by another • copying web-based material • absent or inadequate referencing of sources • resubmitting work presented elsewhere, either by the student or another • learning material from another source by heart, and then presenting it in an exam P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  8. Plagiarism is . . . • unauthorised input from third parties in student work • reproducing large amounts (‘chunks’) of material from textbooks • unauthorised student collaboration (‘collusion’) • unauthorised use of respondent’s work by colleagues/other academics • use of existing templates or formats (IoT lecturers reported in Share 2005, pp. 27-28) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  9. The cultural context • The ‘culture of the copy’ (Schwarz 1996) – culture is (largely) (re-)constituted through the repeat of representations • Contemporary (digital) culture: ‘The realignment of [existing] elements in transformative recombination’ (Livingstone-Webber 1999, p. 265) • Fashion, media and music industries • Institutional and professional communication: The re-use and repurposing of documents • The Internet, social media, hyperlinking, filesharing P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  10. Intertextuality and student writing • Pecorari (2010) – unusual in that it focuses in detail on students’ (re-)use of academic sources • 17 students – 9 MA and 8 PhD (NNSEs) (link with language skills) • All exhibited degrees of ‘plagiarism’ (unattributed attribution) of sources (7-95%) • Pecorari compared text/sources; interviewed students (MA) and supervisors (MA) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  11. A linguistic phenomenon • ‘Plagiarism is … fundamentally a specific kind of language in use, a linguistic phenomenon’ • Also an issue of power • Textual plagiarism: • Prototypical plagiarism • Patchwriting • challenges issues of cultural (institutional) difference (MLK) • ‘plagiarism’ is always contextual P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  12. How writers learn to write • The purpose of the text • (Major) disciplinary differences • Reporting verbs: suggest, note, assert . . . • The subtlety of metatextual conventions (‘chunking’) • Transparency and occlusion of the relationship between the source material and the student material P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  13. Key issues for novice writers • Identity of the source: does the reader understand which sources materially influenced the new text? • Content: does the reader receive an accurate impression of what the source text said? • Language: does the reader understand whether the language comes from the source (eg quotations or paraphrase) (Pecorari 2008, p. 59) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  14. Addressing the challenges • Lack of an ‘apprentice’ model for academic writing • Transparency versus occlusion (notes, points out, asserts) (…) • The discipline-specific traditions are not overtly passed on in the relevant learning community • Purpose of writing – a key narrative element: • A clear sense of purpose for a new text motivates fundamental textual changes. In the absence of that motivation, there is no reason why language which was good enough once should not be good enough a second time (Pecorari 2010, p. 95) • Lack of resources (time, content vs process) • The stakes are high! P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  15. The conundrum • It is difficult to identify how writers use their sources, … there is a lack of consensus in the academic community about what sorts of intertextuality are acceptable in practice and that … lack of consensus is masked by superficial agreement at a more general level (Pecorari 2010, p. 141) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  16. Institutional responses • Pecorari (2010, pp. 148-150) suggests four key areas: • Identifying textual plagiarism • Distinguishing patchwriting from prototypical plagiarism • Providing options for responding pedagogically to plagiarism • Having sensible admissions policies (supports) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  17. Institutional responses • Glendinning (2013) – part of IPPHEAE project (EU LLP) • Similar responses to those found in Share 2005: • Knowledge of issue, and concern amongst all stakeholders • Perception as a discipline issue, with minority seeing as a pedagogical one • Lack of institutional structures, consistency and support • Lack of local research base to inform policy and practice • Little change in IT Sligo since 2005 P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  18. An assessment response • Derived from Hunt (2002) and others • Assessment as communication: ‘having something to say is . . . absolutely indistinguishable from having someone to say it to, and an authentic reason for saying it’(Hunt 2002, p. 1) • Authentic assessment: ‘aligned’ teaching and student empowerment • Participatory but driven by standards and PLOs P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  19. Research-based product • Collaborative • Student-driven • Relevant and ‘useful’ • Rigorous • Recognisesintertextuality and repurposing • Engages with context, genre and audience • Design-thinking • Public dissemination P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  20. Research-based products • SECURE U bullying &cyber-bullying programme • U CHANGE U guide to withdrawing money from an ATM • SCAN book for siblings of childrenon the autistic spectrum • NATURE’S CLASSROOM outdoor play consultancy service • Bereavement package forearly childcare practitioners • Support network for peoplewith missing limbs • Multicultural cookbook for ECCE settings • Guide to educational opportunities in Sligo • Video and teaching package on same-sex families • DIVERSITY DRAGONS cultural diversity curriculum package P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  21. Sources • Briggs, R. (2003) ‘Shameless! Reconceiving the problem of plagiarism’. Australian Universities Review 46(1) pp. 19-23. • Buranen, L. & A. Roy (eds) (1999) Perspectives on plagiarism and intellectual property in a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press. • Carroll, J. (2002) A handbook for deterring plagiarism in higher education. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, Oxford Brookes University. • Glendinning, I. (2013) Plagiarismpolicies for Ireland. Impact of Policies for Plagiarism in Higher Education Across Europe.http://ippheae.eu/images/results/2013_12_pdf/D2-3-14%20IE%20RT%20IPPHEAE%20CU%20Survey%20IrelandNarrative.pdf • Hunt, R. (2002) ‘Four reasons to be happy about Internet plagiarism’. Teaching Perspectives (St. Thomas University) 5. December. pp. 1-5. [http://www.stu.ca/~hunt/4reasons.htm. • Livingstone-Webber, J. (1999) ‘GenX occupies the cultural commons: ethical practices and perceptions of fair use’. In L. Buranen & A. Roy (eds) Perspectives on plagiarism and intellectual property in a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 263-272. • Pecorari, D. (2010) Academicwriting and plagiarism: A linguisticanalysis. London: Continuum. • Schwarz, H. (1996) The culture of the copy: Striking likenesses, unreasonable facsimiles. New York: Zone. • Share, P. (2005) Managing intertextuality: meaning, plagiarism and power. MA Thesis, Waterford IT. [www.itsligo.ie/staff/pshare/] • Share, P. (2010) Plagiarism, intertextuality and the ethical (re-)use of information [Webinar 8 Dec] Institute of Technology Learning Technology Webinar Serieshttp://connect.itsligo.ie/p57698843/ P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

  22. ‘Of plagiarism, little new can be written’ (Schwartz, The culture of the copy, p. 311) P Share What is plagiarism 25/4/14

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