Re: Plagiarism

[tarversj@winthrop.edu (JO KOSTER TARVERS)]

WINTHROP UNIVERSITY                               Electronic Mail Message
                                        Date:     08-Aug-1996 10:15am EDT
                                        From:     Josephine K. Tarvers
                                                  TARVERSJ
                                        Dept:     English
                                        Tel No:   (803) 323-4557

TO:  Remote Addressee                     ( _smtp%"wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu" )


Subject: Re: Plagiarism

Chari,

Like your school, ours incorporates a lot of research into both semesters of 
FYC. And like yours, we've had our share of plagiarism problems. We've used 
several of the solutions offered here (esp. making students show the draft work 
and turn in highlighted, new sources). 

Three other things we do that work are 1) We keep the students' folders of 
graded work for a year after FYC, then permit them to be copied. Then the 
original folders are destroyed. This has made it very easy to get our hands on 
material in cases of grade questions, etc., and very few students seem to keep 
photocopies of all their papers that will then migrate into frat files, etc. 
Only a very small percentage of students comes and asks to copy their files. All 
this costs us is the allocation of one basement office as the file room. 

2) We have experimented with choosing a selection of articles (placed on reserve 
at the library) and allowing only those to be used in the research paper. That 
limits the sources we need to check to a manageable amount. (This has been done 
successfully in the summer.)

3) One thing I've done is to assign Ken Macrorie-like "I-search" papers where 
the library is the last place students go for information. Frequently I have 
them compile primary research on campus slang, current trends in advertising, 
music lyrics, political ads, or the like, and then have them use their own 
research as the basis for their documented papers. I have found that it makes a 
TREMENDOUS difference in their attitudes toward plagiarism when they are looking 
at how they, and their peers, use material they have compiled; suddenly they 
understand the "ownership" issue in a very different way!

I'm glad to know, btw, that other people out there still care about this issue. 
When I read articles like the one in last December's _College English_ that 
argues that most plagiarism is just a sign of growth and that good social 
constructionists shouldn't treat it as anything else, I begin to wonder if I 
shouldn't have been a horticulturalist after all.....

Oh well, that's just whining. Hope this helps.

Jo

----------------------
Jo Koster Tarvers
Department of English and Writing Center
Winthrop University
Rock Hill, SC 29733 USA
(803-323-4557 voice) (803-323-4557 fax)
tarversj@winthrop.edu