[log in to unmask] wrote:
> I was thinking of letting them either summarise or paraphrase a text
> and
> then write an opinion essay using a small text for reference. Do you
> think
> these would serve my purposes?
No. The issue is about students under stress of deadlines, in my
opinion, but you needbto assess a major assumption that the copying -
let's avoid the 'p' word for now - IS inadvertent. I'll make some
specific suggestions below.
> And which genre is the most problematic one in this respect: the
> summary or the paraphrase?
Personally, there isn't much difference between the two terms by my
understanding; a summary just implies but does not require more
original vocabulary than a paraphrased passage.
> Or do any of you know of other ways to test this? The students are
> not to know, I suggest, that they are going to be tested with this
> purpose.
What is your ethical justification for this? What purpose WILL you
give them for the study? Will students subsequently be informed of
your true intent? Will native language students be included as a
control? What sample size will you be aiming for? What selection
process will be used for determining participation? Will it be
voluntary or mandatory? Will there be rewards or inducements?
> Another problem is which parameters or scales to use to classify
> degrees of plagiarism. Do you know of any studies which deal with
> this? For instance, how many words in a string can be classified as
> plagiarism? And what about minor function words? Would copying
> strings of them also be classified as
> inadvertent plagiarism?
I would suggest either working with a co-author who has access and
experience with TurnitinUK or contacting Northumbria Learning or
iParadigms to see if they could give you access to do this research.
The former would probably be preferable and I, and probably others on
this list, would be prepared to collaborate. However, I keep coming
back to what you mean by 'inadvertent' in this research. If I
understand correctly your thesis is that non-native English speakers
will be more likely to straight copy phrases and/or will not make
enough changes for software to still identify texts as sufficiently
similar to be presented as plagiarism. What may be missing is the
issue if intent! It might be necessary to follow up with some test
groups on what their perceptions and understanding off accepted
academic good practice is. Alternatively, some groups would need to be
primed with what is ok to see if they still 'lifted' words from sources.
> As you can see, I would be grateful for references to publications on
> such investigations as well as comments on analytical methods
>>
Ok, some more practical comments. You will need some method of
assessing each student's language competency: a summary or paraphrased
passage based on some predetermined texts might provide this,
particularly if the final word count is quite severe. An alternative
might be a standard comprehension test: read a passage then answer
open questions on its content.
One option for measuring advertency would be an open book exam, with
some students provided with the sources and some allowed to take in
notes only. Variables would be allowin some groups to know the
questions in advance (i.e. A seen paper). This time limited exam could
be contrasted with a word limited essay. What you need to reproduce is
the source -> notes -> submission stages that is often cited as the
cause of inadvertency due to poor academic or language skills, as well
as source -> submission that could be argued as being more likely to
be plagiarism. Of course, the ideal situation being source -> brain ->
submission.
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