Plagiarizing, of course, regardless of intention, is not a problem isolated to composition studies, but because teaching academic writing conventions has historically been perceived as the purview of English departments generally and first-year composition teachers specifically, this issue has been the subject matter of many scholarly articles and books within that discipline. Because plagiarism, as opposed to “mere” cheating on an exam, generally involves passing off someone else’s text as one’s own, English and Writing departments (and the first-year writing divisions specifically) in higher education have been relied upon to teach students about plagiarism—its definitions, how to avoid it, and the repercussions of it. While course policies with broad statements about plagiarism have expanded syllabi, and classroom lessons incorporate the subject, there is no quick fix that will universally solve the problem of plagiarism. Teachers of writing and scholars in composition studies have begun to recognize and discuss the complexity of the issues surrounding plagiarism in a third strain of books, such as Rebecca Moore Howard and Amy Robillard’s Pluralizing Plagiarism: Identities, Contexts, Pedagogies. Yet, such books are written by scholars for other scholars. Intentionally or unintentionally, they tend to exclude students from the conversation about student writing. Books written for students, however, continue to emphasize simplistic definitions of plagiarism, to exhort students to “do their own work,” and to focus on “cheating” or “avoiding” plagiarism.
That’s where this book comes in. As editors of this volume, we reject from the outset the notion that students are fundamentally cheaters. As both teachers of writing and composition scholars, we understand that students plagiarize—intentionally and unintentionally—for a wide variety of reasons. In fact, we are uneasy even with the simple distinction between intentional and unintentional plagiarism because the issue itself is so fraught with philosophical, political, and cultural elements that need to be taken into account before we can even begin to judge an act as “on purpose” or “by mistake.” We likewise have rejected simplistic definitions and all-purpose guides for avoiding plagiarism. Because we are more interested in teaching students than in catching cheaters, we believe students and teachers together need to discuss the very notion of plagiarism, in a variety of cultural contexts. In other words, we want to invite students into the academic conversation about plagiarism. Only in this way, can we achieve true education and help students improve as writers.
We assume, then, that most of you reading this book are undergraduate students (probably in an advanced writing course), or graduate students (who may or may not be new teachers yourselves), or teachers of those courses and/or graduate students. We have encouraged the authors collected here to address both students and teachers as their primary audience, but their essays are specifically, and intentionally, academic. As a student, then, you are likely to encounter concepts with which you are familiar, but in new and more complex ways, as well as concepts with which you are less familiar. This is, as we view it, the nature of higher education. Some of the essays here will explore differing perceptions of plagiarism—between students and teachers, between writing and music, between different cultures. Some will draw connections or distinctions between popular culture—artists like Kanye West and shows like South Park—and academic culture. Others still are based on more traditional forms of academic research. None of them offers The Answer. Instead, our hope is that you—students and teachers—will engage in deep, serious discussion about the complexity of “plagiarism” and the variety of issues it raises.
You will also find that this collection is enriched with some selections from interdisciplinary studies, literature, and technical communication scholars as well as a middle school teacher. The border of composition studies touches and interacts with writing practices in every discipline, certainly. Writing-across-the-curriculum and writing-in-the-disciplines initiatives, for example, are built through interdisciplinary collaborations and held in esteem by teachers across campuses. Literature and technical communication, though, are connected to composition even more closely in our focus on reading and writing, albeit from different perspectives. Scholars from these sister disciplines contributed pieces we felt were essential to presenting the issues surrounding plagiarism in their fullness. Composition studies intersects middle and high school writing pedagogy as well; concurrent credit courses are common now in every state, calling on universities and middle and high schools to share theories and practices with one another. Thus, the voice from middle school was important to providing a more complete picture of a far-reaching and complicated issue. In short, the present collection benefits from conversations about plagiarism occurring in the disciplines most closely connected to those in composition scholarship.
Part I. Definitions of Plagiarism: Distinctions, Laws, and Rules
We begin this volume, as any good critical study should, with a discussion of definitions. Simplistic definitions of plagiarism, we believe, have done more harm than good. Thus the essays collected in Section I look at plagiarism from a variety of perspectives that expose and examine some of the gray areas in and between definitions. Phillip Marzluf has developed a set of specific, hypothetical cases of “plagiarism” and asked both students and teachers to identify those that are, in fact, plagiarism. The results of his study illustrate not only that students and teachers often disagree about what constitutes plagiarism but also that teachers sometimes disagree among themselves. Students and teachers alike can use this study to begin their own discussion of what does or does not count as plagiarism and why. Moreover, this study should inspire larger questions about what difference these classroom definitions might make to the field in general: If the composition classroom becomes the laboratory for how we conceptualize plagiarism, how do these locally changing definitions shape how scholars in the field talk to one another and promote national statements on the issue?
The most important point, we argue, is not that any particular act does (or does not) constitute plagiarism, though there are greater and lesser degrees of consensus on different scenarios; rather, there are clearly differing definitions in play, and moreover, no one definition is equally germane to all possible scenarios. One way to more fruitfully explore these competing definitions is to compare notions of plagiarism to other, related concepts, as Jessica Reyman (Chapter 2) and Esra Mirze Santesso (Chapter 3) do. In asking, “Is All Copying Theft?” Reyman untangles the terms “copyright infringement” and “plagiarism.” In so doing, she offers a part of the plagiarism discussion that is fairly new to composition pedagogy, which has taken for granted that students would learn to engage research in their writing development: the rights and responsibilities of students using outside sources. What are they? What is at stake? While she acknowledges the many ways writers may cheat, she argues against the tendency to quickly condemn all acts of copying as plagiarism and supports a concept of “allowable copying,” which she believes to be inherent in successful academic work in the digital age. Situating a similar sort of discussion in the literature classroom, in Chapter 3 Santesso teases out the differences in meaning among concepts of plagiarism, borrowing, imitating, reworking, and reinterpreting, arguing that we must understand these differences or run the risk of oversimplified understandings of literature and confusion over the value of intellectual collaborations and artistic dialogue.
These discussions of the definitions and meanings of plagiarism demonstrate, as Paul Parker argues in Chapter 4, that avoiding plagiarism is not merely adherence to a set of technical rules but rather a complicated process involving the development of critical, “authorial judgment.” It is assumed in composition pedagogy that writers must learn to navigate a complex set of texts, distinguish between the ideas of others and their own, and determine the extent to which attribution is necessary in a particular set of circumstances. It’s a tall order, and few students develop a meta-awareness of how the synthesis of these skills should “look” in a text. Sure, students may read academic texts for their content; but how often do they examine the mechanical construction of those texts as researched documents? Examining the linguistics of source integration in a series of specific texts, Parker shows how academic authors construct meaning as they make informed citation decisions in their analyses.
Part II. Texts, Technologies, and Surveillance
Competing definitions and conflicting