Response to Peter Levin (2006) WHY THE WRITING IS ON THE WALWHY WALL
FOR THE PLAGIARISM POLICE 1st June  
http://www.student-friendly-guides.com/plagiarism/ 
writing_on_the_wall.pdf Accessed 5/6/06

(his capital letters in title, btw)

In short, I believe Levin's position paper to be making three points:

1) He suggests that patch writing and the use of the words of others  
should be explicitly supported as a legitimate educational activity. If  
pursued, this would indeed bring about the end of the plagiarism  
police, but it would also have to potential to render assessment as  
meaningless.

The idea that we should lighten up over copying is appears to be very  
nice and post modern, especially with reference to later calls for all  
teaching materials and 'passed' student essays to be made freely  
available because ideas aren't property. However, the lack of police  
does have its drawbacks. They exist because people are not always  
altruistic. They are defined by the criminality of the few and the  
protection of the many. We are all, to some degree, law breakers.  
However, it is not the police that have the responsibility to teach, or  
to judge. It IS the job of the lecturer, so we are not merely (if at  
all) plagiarism police. Our duty is the educate, then to professionally  
assess the ability of the student. Part of that is quality assurance.  
One small part is to determine whether a student has been granted  
credit for their own work. It is not who they know (i.e. can cite or  
copy) but what they know (i.e understand) that counts, to coin a  
phrase. A long time ago, a more realistically minded friend of mine  
criticised university for not teaching people how to do things, but to  
be really good at criticising what others do. He drew the analogy to  
theatre and film critics being unable to write a script. "Without the  
doers, what would the cynics attack?" he would say. University should  
be about doing and making as well as analysis.

What is more concerning is the suggested regurgitation of former essays  
into new ones, which as well as being academic inbreeding (?)  
reminiscent of Herman Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game", is flawed (in my  
opinion) because it deskills the student and lowers expectations. Patch  
writing is more legitimate in schools, but not so much at university.  
The question is then when and how to wean students off this before it  
becomes a crutch.

2) Levin's implication that teachers (to use the widest understanding  
of the word) have been unfair in assessment is based on the concept  
that we are 'policing' rather than educating, assessing the ability to  
be assessed, rather than the knowledge.

This is what I call the 'speed trap' analogy: If people only learn to  
slow down for the cameras, rather than to observe speed limits set to  
ensure everyone's safety, then they are not driving safely when they  
believe they are not being watched. The point is the 'if'. Getting a  
ticket, and the corresponding threat of a loss of license if points  
build up - note that new drivers have to retake their test all over  
again if they get one speeding offence in the first year! - is more  
than revenue generation (sic). It does, generally, improve traffic flow  
and curb drivers.

Peter's point in the article is that to "test students (including  
schoolchildren) on what they have not been taught." is on the increase.  
The first section of his paper does show evidence that some students  
don't know how to write. [Peter, this is (ironically) a bit over quoted  
in. Nearly 62% is quotes, which isn't best practice.] Clearly, it is  
unfair to test someone on a skill they do not possess. Remember that  
any drivers with a full drivers license must, therefore, have shown  
that they are capable of controlling the car and observing and keeping  
to the speed limit, or they would not have passed the test. So, maybe  
we all need an academic's drivers licence?

If (again if) assessments just encourage people to 'jump through hoops'  
or 'tick the boxes' then Peter has a point. It IS what you do with it  
that is important. Mere gathering of information is not sufficient any  
longer; when you had to slave over the books and trawl the abstracts it  
was more significant, but now it is far more convenient, even if search  
engines only 'see' about 20% of the web [I do have a reference for  
this, but in a fit of 'New Realism' (kind of post post modernism) I  
have decided not to post it!] So, assessment should require students to  
synthesise and analyse knowledge.

Universities are coming to terms with this change, but it is not merely  
by becoming plagiarism police. I think that we can all agree that  
assuming that students should know how, or be able to work it out  
without explicit training is a thing of the past. Many are actively  
supporting these skills and I know of a few who are looking at  
assessing by other means; in my own work I use video, blogs and even  
text message assignments, with the corresponding increase in resources  
and time that this requires.

[As an exercise, sum up your opinion on this topic in 160 characters or  
less. Standard abbreviations, such as CUL8r "see you later" can be  
used, but provide a separate glossary in case we cannot translate the  
l33t "elite". This form of contextual reading and abbreviated writing  
dates back as far as Sanskrit and Hebraic, and was considered a  
necessity for the educated and wary. Clay tablets like mobile phones  
are limited in size and complex to use...]

3) The paper goes on to call for all information to be made publicly  
available to all. This could, indeed bring an end to essay banks, just  
as legalising all street drugs might end one particular avenue of  
organised crime.

Peter suggests in his abstract that all teaching materials and essays  
be put on the web - just above his ironically worded copyright  
statement - but I am assuming that he is not advocating that this be  
done against the wishes of authors. Firstly, teaching materials ARE the  
property of academic institutions. They pay our wages and it is our  
product. While some lecturers do place their teaching materials  
on-line, this is commercially sensitive, no matter how altruistic, and  
it is unlikely that many institutions would support this.

What is interesting in this analogy is whether there is an academic  
equivalent to the radar detector? Some would argue against giving  
students access to originality reports from TurnitinUK, as it would be  
(to my mind) analogous to radar detectors. A few people advocate that  
leniency in the first year is also problematic. Personally, I have seen  
several very positive cases where students submitted and received these  
reports on their essays, as it explicitly represented academic  
assumptions that might not have been aired otherwise. A bit like seeing  
a public information film to really appreciate the danger of drink  
driving. Talking to the MD of Northumbria Learning the other day, he  
shared a story about a fellow who claimed excitedly to have beaten  
Turnitin by progressively replacing words in an cut and paste essay  
until the software no longer identified the sources. It took days to do  
this refinement, but I would consider even this to be an educationally  
valid activity.

We all know that 78mph is probably OK on a motorway, 48 in a 40 zone,  
and so on; we assume this in our driving. Don't believe me? Now recall  
that time that you were frustrated when behind someone doing exactly  
the speed limit in their car. So, this person who read and re-read this  
material. He changed words, even if mechanically, which required him to  
become intimate with the knowledge. And it took far longer than just  
writing the essay would have. I am sure he learned a lot. I once typed  
up a friend's town planning dissertation. You would be surprised what I  
can still remember of it nearly 20 years later.

I do agree with Peter that students should have greater access to the  
work of others. A former colleague actually gets his students to mark  
each other's work, because it exposes them to the knowledge. In that  
respect, patch writing as a first stage could be a valid educational  
tool. Feedback from peers is excellent, even when that from lecturers  
is occasionally poor. So, another tool might be to get students to  
assess their teachers; presentation skills, use of AV, standard of  
notes, etc.

Levin leaves little else left to us, having criticised examinations and  
summative long term coursework projects. However, I have to agree that  
the language used to describe academic offence to be offensive. Sadly,  
though at around page 12 onwards (about half way), the article becomes  
more opinionated, with more point scoring than justified argument. So.  
I will leave it there for now.

Levin's work is thought provoking, but I grow tired of people putting  
the 'cad' in 'academic'.

Mike

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