Here is a list of resources that may be useful if you want to explore the issue further.
Suggested Readings
Site Bibliography
Suggested Readings
DeVoss, Daniele and Annette C. Rosati. “‘It Wasn’t Me, Was It?’ Plagiarism and the Web.” Computers and Composition, vol. 19, 2002, pp. 191-203.
DeVoss and Rosati offer a comprehensive overview of the myriad of reasons that might lead students to plagiarize, one being the difficulty inherent to assignments that ask students to say something original about a (frequently well-researched) subject while finding credible sources that support their claims (195). Addressing concerns around internet plagiarism specifically, DeVoss and Rosati promote two approaches to teaching about plagiarism in the first year writing (FYW) classroom: 1) “Calling attention to copyright and authorship issues generally and on web sites specifically”; and 2) fostering critical thinking and online research practices (198-200).
Ede, Lisa and Andrea Lunsford. “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship.” PMLA, vol. 116, no. 2, 2001, pp. 354-369.
Ede and Lunsford note that postmodern and poststructuralist theories have troubled the notion of an individual author while academic practices continue to reinforce and value this notion. They call for increased attention to this paradox, and to increased opportunities for collaborative writing.
Everyone, Lea Calvert and Gary Moorman. “Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, vol. 56, no. 1, 2012, pp. 35-44.
To help prevent plagiarism and account for 21st century literacy and learning practices, Evering and Moorman advocate multimodal assignments, multiple drafts and “checkpoints”, and explicit instruction about note-taking and citationality.
Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Understanding ‘Internet Plagiarism.’ Computers and Composition, vol. 24, 2007, pp. 3-15.
Howard unpacks and historicizes the fears around “internet plagiarism” before advocating pedagogical interventions rather than plagiarism-detection software.
Hu, Guangwei and Jun Lei. “Investigation Chinese University Students’ Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward Plagiarism From an Integrated Perspective.” Language and Learning, vol. 62, no. 3, 2012, pp. 813-850.
After reviewing research that considers plagiarism from cultural, developmental, enculturational, and disciplinary perspectives, Hu and Lei report on their own mixed-methods study of 270 Chinese university students’ understandings of and attitudes about plagiarism in English writing samples (verbatim copying vs. unacknowledged paraphrasing). They report the following findings:
1) “[O]nly a minority (i.e., around 35%) of the participants identified verbatim copying as an act of plagiarism and even fewer students (i.e., around 12%) regarded unacknowledged paraphrasing as plagiarism” (841).
2) “[S]tudents who were able to identify subtle plagiarism were also able to identify blatant plagiarism” (841).
3) “[T]he students who identified the two forms of plagiarism, as a group, held negative attitudes toward identified plagiarism and punished the perpetrators by marking them down” (841).
4) “[T]here were differences between the participants’ conceptualizations of plagiarism (and related issues) and those prevailing in the Anglo-American academic community” (841).
Hu and Lei warn against ethnocentric claims about the total differences between Chinese and Anglo-American cultural practices, but do advocate for a more nuanced approach to teaching plagiarism that takes into account the disciplinary and cultural variations around plagiarism and intertextuality.
Price, Margaret. “Beyond ‘Gotcha!’: Situation Plagiarism in Policy and Pedagogy.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 54, no. 1, 2002, pp. 88-115.
Calling for a situated understanding of plagiarism, Price compares several plagiarism policies and offers pedagogical recommendations for teaching about plagiarism. She is careful, however, to remind readers that plagiarism policies and pedagogical recommendations should arise from/be adapted to specific discourse communities. Recommendations: 1) invite students to participate in conversations about plagiarism, citationality, and authorship; 2) treat citation as a convention that can change; 3) allow students to participate in the construction of plagiarism policies; 4) provide multiple opportunities for students to present information from the same source in different ways (summary, paraphrase, direct quote, own words).
Valentine, Kathryn. “Plagiarism as Literacy Practice: Recognizing and Rethinking Ethical Binaries.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 1, 2006, pp. 89-109.
Valentine argues that plagiarism should be considered a literacy task, which has implications for thinking about the connections among identity enactment and plagiarism. According to Valentine:
This insistence on 1) seeing plagiarism as an ethical issue, 2) judging what counts as plagiarism using textual features and at the same time punishing the person “behind” the features, and 3) labeling that person as dishonest are signs that plagiarism is doing the work of identity regulation – marking some students as outsiders when they do not properly perform a literacy task and then punishing them for not being the right kind of person. (94)
Valentine proposes an understanding of plagiarism that is linked to identity, literacy practice, and discourse. Instructors should talk to students about the relationships among plagiarism and discourses of “academic dishonesty” and identities of a “dishonest student”; help students consider how particular contexts shape citation conventions; and foster a meta-language around issues of citationality and plagiarism.
Site Bibliography
“Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices.” Council of Writing program Administrators, Jan. 2003. Accessed 18 Aug. 2015.
This WPA statement distinguishes plagiarism (the deliberate use of another’s materials without citation) from misuse of sources (the undeveloped, inadequate, incorrect citing of another’s materials). This statement also offers a series of best practices that instructors can employ to help students understand discipline-specific research and citation norms.
Sandra Jamieson, Rebecca Moore Howard, and Tricia C. Serviss. The Citation Project. Drew University, Syracuse University, and Santa Clara University, 2013. Accessed 18 Aug. 2015.
This website describes the “multi-institution research project” on students’ citation practices for research essays. Major findings: 1) students engage with primary sources “shallowly” and often do not fully understand the sources they are using for their essays; 2) relatedly, students do not incorporate summary of primary texts, relying instead on patch writing, “cherry-picking,” etc. The “Resources” link of the Citation Project website offers a comprehensive bibliography of helpful articles, textbooks, and websites.