Tutoring as Plagerism -Reply

["Ron Adams" <RADAMS@gwgate.kvcc.edu>]

Quite frankly, John Kennedy's posting about the potential for plagiarism resulting from a tutorial caused my blood pressure to rise significantly.  BUT NOT AT JOHN.

How wrong-headed and hypocritical can some "educators" be?  If the  tutorial is, in fact, teaching one-to-one, rather than a proofing/editing session, there is no  more chance for plagiarism than when we work with a student in our office or classroom.  Could plagiarism possibly occur? Of course it could; the place to deal with this, however, is in tutor training and the day-to-day administration of your center, not in institutional policy.

The hypocrisy of professionals willing to consider such a move is truly astounding.  Is there any academic writer who retreats to a lonely garret to write professional articles?  Are there not discussions with colleagues, critiques by editors and/or reviewers?  I have never understood why it is ok for us to use all of the resources available to a writer, but it is not ok for our students to do the same.  How many of us wondered why our professors required us to generate "publishable" quality papers during a single semester course, yet those self-same professors often took years and sought copious feedback when generating their own articles?  It appears that some of our colleagues have turned into their own parents--do as we say, not as we do.

Ron Adams
Communication Arts Department
Kalamazoo Valley Community College

radams@kvcc.edu