Likewise, taking a progressive stance in the field to resist the traditional notion of writing as the work of an author operating inside of a bubble of unique ideas, Martine Courant Rife and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss argue in Chapter 6 that composing should instead be perceived and taught as “remixing.” This term recognizes the innovation of technology, which encourages authors to construct new meaning by assembling pieces that are often derived from others’ work. This concept of “writing-as-remix,” the authors argue, should inspire us to embrace and complicate the conversation around an “ethic of Fair Use.”
These essays discuss some of the ways the digital age has raised the stakes. In some ways, it seems, it is easier to plagiarize; in other ways, it is also both harder and easier to spot and identify. What some scholars and cultural critics view as a “culture of cheating” (Callahan xvi) has created an academic culture of suspicion and surveillance, as demonstrated by the development (and increasing popularity) of plagiarism detection software. Such a climate, in which the focus is on policing plagiarism rather than teaching and supporting students as they learn conventions of attribution and citation, is counterproductive. In Chapter 7, Deborah Harris-Moore draws from Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish to highlight the ways plagiarism detection software can be used by administrators and teachers to abuse their power over students. It is important to consider here the complexities of teacher authority and power in the composition classroom, especially in contrast to other classroom settings. How should we define the culture of the composition classroom? What effect does an adversarial relationship between teacher and student have on that culture?
In a similar vein, but for different reasons, Sean Zwagerman argues in Chapter 8 that enforcing anti-plagiarism policies through surveillance and punishment creates hostile divisions between students and teachers and even between those students who do plagiarize and those who don’t. These divisions can have negative effects particularly in the composition classroom, which relies on a collaborative, cooperative environment between teacher and student. Zwagerman explains that both students and teachers are sometimes oversensitive to evaluation; students sometimes plagiarize to avoid bad evaluation, and teachers sometimes deal with such plagiarism unproductively, also to avoid negative teaching evaluations. Zwagerman believes plagiarism policies reliant on surveillance and punishment exacerbate these divisions, and he calls for more collaborative policies that might heal unproductive rifts.
Part III. Authorship and Ownership: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Perspectives
Ultimately, plagiarism is a cultural concept. In a digital, multicultural, and global context, then, cultural and cross-cultural perspectives on authorship and ownership merit exploration. Thus, we begin the final section with Bridget M. Marshall’s “Who Cares About Plagiarism? Cheating and Consequences in the Pop Culture Classroom,” an examination of portrayals of plagiarism and cheating in American popular culture. Using specific examples from television, literature, and film, such as Harry Potter and South Park, and comparing/contrasting these with examples of other media, Marshall reveals the mixed messages sent by pop culture about what constitutes “cheating.” Indeed, students and teachers live in a daily barrage of media references from pop culture, and these references help shape not only the content of our compositions but also our relationships to those texts. Marshall’s chapter offers us a meeting place and an entryway into deeper discussions about the power and responsibility of popular culture in depicting and defining plagiarism.
Marshall’s essay also provides a useful contrast to the discussions of authorship, ownership, and “cheating” that follow. Because first-year composition often offers students their only (or at least primary) instruction on the ethics of ownership in academic culture, composition teachers are routinely expected to behave as gatekeepers, stemming the flow of dishonesty and confusion about plagiarism; as gatekeepers these instructors are expected to not only be aware of cultural differences in their first-year students but also to understand these differences sufficiently to provide clear instruction for preventing any kind of “cheating” in college. In Chapter 10, Rachel Knaizer highlights the overlapping and often conflicting cultural understandings of plagiarism that exist in any one classroom, and shows how those overlaps can confuse students about the nature of plagiarism, especially as students don’t get their information about plagiarism solely from teachers but also from one another. She explains that writers from different countries are especially at risk for being misidentified as plagiarists due to their cultures’ different understandings of language and ownership.
Lise Buranen, in Chapter 11, discusses how various cultures define concepts related to plagiarism and the ownership of language. Based on the results of her own qualitative study, Buranen argues that much of the literature about cross-cultural understandings of plagiarism has resulted in oversimplified maxims for the classroom. Such maxims put all students at risk of believing they don’t understand the rules simply through some fault of their own rather than as a result of complex influences embedded in their individual cultures. Anne-Marie Pederson likewise complicates ideas about plagiarism in Chapter 12 by explaining some of the cultural contexts that contribute to misunderstandings about what constitutes plagiarism and why some people do plagiarize. She explains how Western ideas about property ownership tie to common ideas about plagiarism, and then explains how material conditions and educational experiences facilitate the practice of plagiarism in some cases.
All of these ideas—cross-cultural, popular, academic—provide fertile ground for discussion and, taken together, they present contrasts that are important to examine. Rather than offer a simplistic definition and a guide to avoiding plagiarism, this volume is intended to help students and teachers alike think critically about the very concept itself, and to participate in serious intellectual inquiry and discussion. It is the contention of the editors of this collection that all of us be aware of and understand in a deep way the controversies about plagiarism that writers continually negotiate. All writers, for example, must confront the “problem” that we all owe an enormous debt to those who have come before us, and to our contemporaries, for feeding and shaping our own ideas. All writers struggle to understand what plagiarism really is. Are all ideas plagiarized? Is there really such a thing as true originality? How do we deal with information overload versus our responsibility to document the writers and thinkers already published? Critical Conversations About Plagiarism opens these questions for a collaborative exploration of their meaning and implications in our increasingly complex academic lives.
Works Cited
Atkins, Thomas, and Gene Nelson. “Plagiarism and the Internet: Turning the Tables.” English Journal 90 (4): 101–104. Print.
Blum, Susan D. My Word!: Plagiarism and College Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2009. Print.
Callahan, David. Preface. Guiding Students from Cheating and Plagiarism to Honesty and Integrity: Strategies for Change. Ed. Ann Lathrop and Kathleen Foss. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2005. xv–xvi. Print.
Donnelly, Michael, Rebecca Ingalls, Tracy Ann Morse, Joanna Castner, and Anne Meade Stockdell-Giesler. “(Mis)Trusting Technology that Polices Integrity: A Critical Assessment of Turnitin.com.” inventio 8:1 (Fall 2006). Web. 14 January 2010.
Hamalian, Leo. “Plagiarism: Suggestions for its Cure and Prevention.” College Composition and Communication 10.1 (1959): 50–53. Print.
Hamilton, Edward. “Let’s Teach Composition!” College English 6.3 (December 1944): 159–164.
“Honor Code & Councils.” WM.edu. The College of William and Mary. n.d. Web. 14 January 2010.
“The Honor Code at Longwood University.” Longwood.edu.