The other essay we’re reading from (Copy)write: Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom is Leslie Johnson-Farris’ “Moving Beyond Plagiarized/Not Plagiarized in a Point, Click, and Copy World.” I thought this was a smart piece, personally. I hadn’t thought a whole lot before about the issues of how universities don’t have policies regarding “fair use” for students’ use of materials (not to mention the fair use of students’ work by others). For me, her detail about how she teaches this stuff is a little too much, but I can say from some experience that it is a useful exercise to get students to think about the work that they do in classes like fycomp in terms of their own rights and of fair use.
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I personally really enjoyed this reading because it highlighted something that I have never even though about before: the manner in which copyright.plagiarism definitions are often lacking specificity and focus in schools. It’s a valid point to make, and from my personal experience, I can say that I’ve never had a teacher talk specifically about the school’s plagiarism policy. Instructors and professors may glaze over it in their discussions of the syllabus on the first day of class, but in my experience they seem to assume that we, as students, know exactly what the policy is and why it’s important. I’ve had some professors come across the school’s plagiarism and academic honesty policy in the syllabus on the first day and say something along the lines of “plagiarism…don’t do it!” and then move on to the next section.
I also thought that Johnson-Farris’ discussion of how she teaches her students about plagiarism and copyright in her classroom was a bit too much, but I do agree with her that it is important for instructors to have these conversations with students. And this is true not only in terms of making sure that they understand how/when they can use copyrighted material but also in helping them to realize their own authorship and rights when it comes to the work that they create. As she explains, “If administrators, instructors, and copyright holders wonder why students hold so little respect for the intellectual property rights of others in a digital age, we should probably look no further than how we view student work.” (317)
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I seem to have had the opposite reaction of Danielle. The chapter rubbed me the wrong way and maybe it’s because I’m stuck in the “done, not done” thinking or I just don’t have much leniency. The thing that really rubbed me wrong was that Johnson-Farris didn’t say what I consider to be the most important part of plagiarism – trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own – until 8 pages in. I feel that is pretty critical to the discussion of intellectual property and plagiarism. I feel using an image from Google Images to go along with your paper and making it appear as if you created the image are two very different things.
And I seem to recall thinking plagiarism was a very big and problematic thing in middle school and maybe even elementary. Perhaps it was just my school that was good at drilling in “do your own work.” I would think by college you wouldn’t need a definition of plagiarism, but a stern reminder of the consequences never hurt.
Like Danielle, I thought the examples were a bit much as well – something that could have been summed up in general terms with one example.
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This article is fascinating to me, as a) student work isn’t often used in terms of “credible sources” for a paper (ie: students don’t cite other students), and b) the plagiarism focus is always on the violator, because it’s often times (or at least, we imagine it this way) an essay stolen from the internet or quotations included sans quote marks (accidental or intentional).
The specific policies the author uses as examples of how student writing is confined to policy on plagiarism (with student as borrower) but not copyright/fair use (with students work as used, or with student as “curator” or “designer” instead) highlights the point made about the binary of done/not done, or the plagiarism panic (we need more workshops on plagiarism!!). It makes me wonder if we should be rethinking more complex ideas of responsibility: not responsibility for the crime, but responsibility and ownership of one’s choices. I appreciate her explanations in the Course Policies section, and will think about adapting something similar.
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also, this portion: My students also begin the semester learning a simple truth they’ve probably never deeply considered: They own the rights to the work they produce
in my class—and indeed the work they produce in any class. I spell out those rights along with my limited rights to read and respond to their work in my syllabus. On the very first day, students complete, only if they so choose, an
“Informed Consent for Use of Student Work” that reinforces their ownership of their work and gives me the ability to use their work in certain settings.
^^what does this say about sites like shitmystudentswrite.tumblr.com?
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I agree with both Danielle and Melissa. I hadn’t thought that schools and universities did not have a firm grasp on their plagiarism/copyright policy. Any professor I have had that talks about plagiarism always listed the page in the student handbook that the policy falls on, but I’ve never wondered if they really knew what the policy was. The experience I have had with my instructors about plagiarism has been the “don’t do it” speech and they always say that we, as students, should know how to cite well so that we do not get accused of plagiarism.
Also, plagiarism is passing someone’s work off as your own, and like Melissa, I thought that should have been addressed sooner in Johnson-Farris’ article. The message of “do your own work” was drilled into my head in elementary and middle school, too. I remember thinking, even still now-a-days, that if I turned in a paper where I didn’t cite something or re-phrased it that my teacher would instantly know.
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Yeah, this is interesting because every college course I can remember taking during my undergrad has supplied me with a syllabus that had something in it describing a policy about plagiarism. Even some of the grad courses I have taken so far mention some type of plagiarism policy. It would be interesting to see what policies colleges in other countries might have for plagiarism. I wonder if other societies in different areas of the world would share this idea of plagiarism.
“When it comes to students as the most junior members of the academic community, we provide dire warnings of copyright violation, but we provide little backing for students as creators of their own intellectual property” (311). This quote really got me thinking of how copyright and plagiarism are presented are almost entirely negative, even punitive. Even when professors discuss plagiarism, it’s often the experience that Tim and Danielle refer to–a simple statement telling students what NOT to do, without any explanation of what constitutes as plagiarism and what does not. There’s also not a lot of explanation of the reverse side of the plagiarism issue: the value of intellectual property, as Johnson-Farris notes. It’s more about why plagiarism is bad and less about why respect for the intellectual property of others is good. And there’s also little reference to how copyright (or maybe more citation, in a college classroom) is good and useful–something which “Tales of the Public Domain” took such great pains to convey.
What I most appreciated about his article, however, was that fact that Johnson-Farris looks at ideas of intellectual property from the other side of the coin, not as something that students have to only find and incorporate, but as something that students can actually produce. Students “own the rights to the work they produce in [her] class—and indeed the work they produce in any class” (317). Statements like this, I feel, go a long way toward enforcing for students that they have an identity both as writers and as members of an academic community, and that their ideas have value.
I was struck by that aspect of the article as well; I don’t think they do a very good job of explaining your rights as a student to you, and as Melissa said they drill the no plagiarism thing from elementary on up. I would like to think we all have that figured out by college.
In the time between implementing a proper education for all in copyright laws and rights, teachers are implored to act as “intellectual property pedagogical philosophers” (324). I just thought it was a funny description. In other words, the people teaching the rules need to know the rules well enough to bend them a bit.
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I think most students at the first year level and beyond have a pretty clear grasp over the extreme plagiarism example of knowingly passing off someone else’s work as your own. But there is a very VERY large grey area that many students either do not understand. I get students all the time who do not understand that you have to cite stuff from the internet.
The other thing is a lot of this is open to interpretation. They discuss this a bit in this essay: should students have to “cite” every instance of an image they use in a slideshow? Do those images all need to be fair use? It depends a lot on the teacher. In this essay, they suggest no, but I encourage my students to cite this stuff. And technically, citing something wrong (and deliberately) is the same thing as borrowing that Google image without attribution.
Sarah, this is an interesting point and I’m glad you brought it up because it got me thinking. I took a class on language and culture last year when I was an undergrad and this was something I remember us talking about in class, albeit briefly. There are some cultures (I want to say some Asian cultures but probably others, too) where everybody’s work is seen towards contributing to the common good, so formal citations and works cited/references pages are not really a thing there. Makes you wonder how students from these cultures who come over to a country like the US for school adapt to our ideas of plagiarism and individual ownership of our work…and what they think about it.
http://www.daniellebreann.wordpress.com
I agree that pretty much every college/university instructor I’ve had has “read” the school’s plagiarism policy to the class at the beginning of the semester and yet student can walk away not realizing what constitutes plagiarism.
I personally have had to explain to two different writers at the newspaper that lifting entire paragraphs from someone else’s story is not acceptable. The “lifts” were not direct quotes attributed to the publication the stories appeared in, but entire paragraphs of writing, with but a few words changed here and there. Both writers pleaded ignorance and thanked me for explaining to them what they said no instructor had clarified for them. Honestly I was dumbstruck that they thought they had done nothing wrong.
Not only should plagiarism been addressed sooner, but it seemed she took a rather lax view of it. It was almost like she was like, “We need to do everything we can to help these poor plagiarists.” It wasn’t until page 322 that she really laid into students saying this is a serious matter, you will get a failing grade, especially you “mosaic plagiarists.”
I agree Jackie, I think the author made a step in the right direction in empowering and informing student about the rights they have to their own works and that it may very well help them to respect the value and ownership of others’ work.
This was a very interesting article and am really glad to see an undergraduate student take this approach in her research.
I too, have had the same 30 second schpiel as everyone else about plagiarism. It’s essentially glossed over and assumed that you should know this by now, which is hopefully true for most. However, because there is more to plagiarism than meets the eye, you can’t expect 18-19 year olds to know much more than the obvious that Professor Krause points out. And from the previous Hobbs-Donnelly article, even some educators aren’t all that well informed about copyright law. I think it’s safe to say that it’s an important focus for both student and educator.
There are a few issues I have with this research finding, or lack thereof, is the the lack of response by both educators and students and no proven pattern/trend concluded. While it seems that the students vignettes show a need for more IP/copyright law, they are in a professional writing program so, they’re perspective is subjective. What I would rather have seen are data and conclusions from the science/technology group because it seems that area would have a different set of challenges altogether, like patent law, worth looking into more closely, creating a whole other dynamic to the research.
In my opinion (and maybe Brian would agree!), I think everyone should have a journalism class and/or write for a student/local paper for a semester. I can guarantee that if you site someone’s quote wrong, most likely, you will hear from them and it won’t be nice! Not to say that this has happened to me, but I know people who have found themselves in this situation and been very humbled by the experience.
Also, did anyone find it interesting that one of the professors was defensive about being approached to participate in the study? And then, on top of that, being questioned about how this pertained to her undergraduate studies? The professor could’ve just simply declined to participate and wished the student well. It seems a little unprofessional to me. Maybe I’m a little too sensitive about it, but if the author included this response in her publication, then she did it with purpose and for a reason.