As the director of a writing program at a public university, I work with teachers who possess a wide range of attitudes towards plagiarism, ranging from nonchalance to hostility, and who rely upon varying definitions of plagiarism. As a writing teacher, I often work with students who appear mystified, scared, or downright cynical about what constitutes plagiarism and academic misconduct. Their confusion is easy to understand, given the conflicting definitions and suggestions they receive from class to class and from high school to college and university levels. In order to more fully explore the sometimes mystifying range of ideas surrounding plagiarism, for both students and teachers, I designed the “Attitudes towards Plagiarism” questionnaire, which prompts users to classify and rate ten scenarios describing possible plagiarism or academic misconduct cases. By asking us to reflect on our definitions of plagiarism, the “Attitudes towards Plagiarism” questionnaire encourages dialogue between teachers and students, allowing us to compare our assumptions about responsible research, the ownership of writing, collaboration, and the incorporation of outside sources.
In this brief study1 I examine how teachers and students classify the scenarios in the “Attitudes towards Plagiarism” questionnaire and, for the cases they regard as plagiarism, how seriously they consider them. In the fall of 2006, forty-four instructors, professors, and librarians who worked with first- and second-year students in a wide range of disciplines at a public Midwestern university completed an online version of the questionnaire, which also elicited written comments. In addition to their participation, 138 students from nine second-year writing courses completed a paper version of the questionnaire. For the student participants, either an experienced graduate teaching assistant or I conducted a brief feedback session and discussed their responses.2 Below, I first describe the questionnaire, providing the ten scenarios and defining the four variables that constitute them. Then, I summarize the study results and conclude with a few observations about how the questionnaire can contribute to teachers’ and students’ discussions.
The Questionnaire
While developing the ten scenarios for the “Attitudes towards Plagiarism” questionnaire, I kept in mind the various definitions of plagiarism (Howard 475), the reasons researchers have identified for why students plagiarize (e.g., Ashworth, Bannister, and Thorne 202; Love and Simmons 544; Roig 979), and the practices of collaboration and peer editing. The questionnaire asks teachers and students to read ten scenarios of possible acts of plagiarism, to judge whether these acts should be considered plagiarism, and then to determine the severity of each case. These judgments are made according to the following five-point scale:
1. Not plagiarism.
2. Although this scenario represents an act of plagiarism or academic misconduct, it is not serious. This act is incidental or possibly unintentional. The student does not deserve severe punishment.
3. This act is slightly more serious. There is more of a possibility that it was intentional. The student might deserve punishment.
4. This act is more serious. It is clearly intentional. The student definitely deserves punishment.
5. This is the most serious act of plagiarism or academic misconduct. This act calls for severe consequences.
The ten scenarios are listed below. In parentheses before each scenario appears the title by which we refer to it in this essay.
#1 (Friend’s Paper Scenario) Kathy is having difficulty finding ideas for her take-home history exam. After discussing her problems with a friend, she finds out that her friend had to write on a similar question the previous semester. Using a draft of her friend’s paper, which only got a “C,” Kathy rewrites it to make it sound more like her. Also, she completely changes her introduction. In the body of the paper, she includes a few new points.
#2 (Conclusion Scenario) John hates writing conclusions. Thus, instead of summarizing the paper himself, he reads his paper aloud to his friend and then asks her to briefly sum up the paper. John writes down exactly what she says. After making a couple of grammatical changes, he includes this at the end of his paper.
#3 (Vietnam Scenario) Sandra, who is writing about the Vietnam War, has collected ten newspaper articles that mention an important battle. As she writes her description of this battle, she makes sure to include proper citations whenever she uses direct quotations from the articles. However, she doesn’t cite the sources for names, dates, statistics, and geographical places. In her opinion, these are just basic historical facts.
#4 (Faulty Paraphrase Scenario) In The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Michael looks up a definition on “occupational disease” and finds the following:
Occupational disease: an illness resulting from the conditions or environment of employment. Some time usually elapses between exposure to the cause and development of the symptoms of an occupational disease. Among the causes of such diseases are toxic chemicals, such as benzene and dioxin.
In a report for his business communications class, Michael includes this definition by writing:
Occupational disease is an illness resulting from job-related conditions. Usually, there is an elapse of time between exposure to the cause and development of the symptoms of this disease. Toxic chemicals, like benzene and dioxin, are common causes (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia).
#5 (Sight Gag Scenario) Margaret, in her paper that summarizes different techniques in film comedy, reads this definition about a “sight gag” in Noel Carroll’s “Notes on the Sight Gag” (from Andrew S. Horton’s Comedy/Cinema/Theory, page 26).
The sight gag is a form of visual humor in which amusement is generated by the play of alternative interpretations projected by the image or image series. Sight gags existed in theater prior to their cinematic refinement, and sight gags, although they are regarded as the hallmark of the silent comedy, can occur in films that are neither silent nor comic.
Margaret, however, thinks this definition is too complicated. She rewrites it as:
The sight gag, which is a common feature in many types of film, has been around since the days of theater. It involves a visual image that makes you laugh, especially when this image has many different meanings.
Since she has changed the definition so much, she feels that she doesn’t need to cite the source.
#6 (Shakespeare Scenario) The assignment in Cody’s drama class asks students to write a three-page interpretation of a Shakespearean play. Glancing through a book about Shakespeare, Elizabethan Playwrights, Cody finds an analysis of The Tempest that he likes. Cody then extends the analysis to write his paper on Shakespeare’s King Lear. Although he cites the Shakespeare anthology he is using, he doesn’t indicate his use of Elizabethan Playwrights.
#7 (Mother Scenario) In her opinion, Lindsay feels that she has a lot to say, but, at the same time, feels that she can never find the right words to express her thoughts. All her sentences are always the same length and start in the same way. Her mother, fortunately, is a retired high school English teacher. She reworks Lindsay’s papers until they sound more academic. “She only touches the grammar, and stuff like words and punctuation,” Lindsay says. “The ideas are mine. That’s the important part.”
#8 (Collaboration Scenario) In Frank’s writing class, group editing is emphasized. And, since Frank’s usual partners, Erica and Keith, are recognized as the best students in class, he thinks it is in his best interest to rewrite the final drafts of his papers by including the exact words and sentence structures they suggest. This is especially easy since the instructor tells his students to write, in a different color ink, directly on the rough drafts of their partners.
#9 (Salinger Scenario) Lynn’s favorite book in high school was The Catcher in the Rye. She liked the smart-alecky tone of the book and how the main character’s thoughts are depicted with mild swears and informal phrases. The first sentence of this book, for example, reads, “If you really want to hear about it,