I have read some excellent material stemming from the messages on this
list but I am picking up a strain of thought not that I cannot agree with.
There seems to be a suggestion now that copying from the internet is
wrong: that is, copying from the internet per se is wrong. The reality is
that copying from the internet is no more wrong than copying without
attribution from anywhere else. The important point is that it is the
attribution that is the operator in the case of plagiarism versus
legitimate use of sources.
If a student downloads some materials and reworks them in an appropriate
way to support or reject an argument, shouldn't we be happy that they are
only doing what we did and do and what we consider correct and appropriate?
As perhaps an extreme example, I looked at a PhD thesis on line last night
and that successful thesis contained almost 20 pages of references, many
of which were quoted directly in the text. Clearly, the author had used
many, many sources in his work. However, he had properly cited all of them.
Working with my own children as they have plodded their way through
secondary school I have learned two important things:
the children feel that it's a burden to collect and attribute their
sources. They know that they used a book, they know that they have
incorporated materials from a web site; but they just can't see the point
of all those quotation marks, references, appendices;
some techers are not helping by not educating their charges properly: here
is the text of a notice I see every day at a college in Oxford at the
moment "Plagiarism No, All my own work Yes" That's it! The college has
published guidance notes on plagiarism for its staff and students but much
of the three pages they issue relate to the Harvard system of source
acknowledgement and citation. There is no systematic attempt to help
students appreciate the difference between the wholesale copy and the
carefully constructed and reasoned argument that uses sources that are
clearly acknowledged.
Duncan
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