I appreciate Jenifer Spencer's (posted to this list by Olwyn Alexander)
differentiation between original words and original ideas, the benefits of
terms used within discourse communities and her point about getting 'the
students inside the discourse community as quickly as possible'.

However, my concern over tolerance to plagiarism or even tolerance to
attributed lengthy quotations by students is this: can a student's
understanding and learning be assessed if representation of meaning has not
been reflected on and reconstructed in the student's own words?

If a student copies and pastes a series of paragraphs from different
sources, this may demonstrate identification of relevant issues, but can it
demonstrate reflection, creation of knowledge (or original ideas) and
learning?

I agree with Peter that solutions to help all students to meet the standards
are preferable to inconsistent assessment.

Kirstie Edwards
Associate Lecturer
MA in Professional Communication
Sheffield Hallam University

-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing -
discussions [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter M Wilson
Sent: 13 May 2010 11:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: teaching 'own ideas', was Do SS learn to plagiarize in our
classes?

Isn't the harsh truth that if a student enrolls in a foreign language
institution, s/he is taking on board an additional level of difficulty, and
the associated linguistic and cultural hurdles?  If I am to award a student
a degree, that degree must be comparable to all other degrees awarded by my
institution.  To say less is to devalue the education - or at least the
certification - the institution is offering.

That said, I am all in favour of a more lenient initial approach to
disciplinary matters.  I have worked with enough distressed foreign students
in my English University to know that genuine misunderstanding does happen,
and that draconian measures do not help.  |I doubt if they are even much use
as 'encouraging the others' not to plagiarize - dread warnings do not seem
to be noticed by many students.)

Peter


Peter Wilson
quondam Academic Writing and Study Skills adviser formerly of Study Advice
Service University of Hull  [log in to unmask]





-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing -
discussions on behalf of Russell Kent
Sent: Tue 11/05/2010 16:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: teaching 'own ideas', was Do SS learn to plagiarize in our
classes?
 
Dear List Members,

A question I would like to pose to the list.

Do members feel that more latitude regarding plagiarism should be given to
non-native speakers of English than native speakers?

I would be interested in knowing list members opinions. 

I sometimes just wonder if too much is asked of some non-native speakers
because lack of language is an extra barrier they have to face.

Regards,

Russ Kent

-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing -
discussions [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda McPhee
Sent: 11 May 2010 10:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: teaching 'own ideas', was Do SS learn to plagiarize in our classes?

> 
> Rebel Palm wrote:
> 
>> ... By the time they reach graduate school, these students have had a
career of being able to get away with throwing other people's (some
expert's) ideas at a paper, writing it once (no revisions), with very little
effort spent on original thought.  Some of them come to me perplexed at a
prof's demand for your "own ideas."  They say, "no one's ever told me I get
to have my own ideas."  And this is grad school!

About teaching 'own ideas'

One thing I learned from an undergrad writing course (I swore I'd never
forget that teacher's name, and I want to give her credit, but I just can't
right now; Mary something) was to keep a notebook on my thinking. She had us
finish each class by writing down three questions related to the lesson.
These could not be questions that could be answered by any equivalent of
googling them (well, that didn't exist then, but you know what I mean). At
the end of the week we had 9 questions each, and our weekend assignment was
to choose the most interesting one, and write a one page exploration of it.
Not an 'answer', an exploration.

   She would collect these on Mondays and give them back on Tuesdays, so she
was skimming them to be sure that we were asking real questions and
exploring them honestly. Sometimes there was a little checkmark, and
sometimes a short comment about this or that aspect, but she wasn't putting
a lot of time into them.

   I think she may have used them as well to get inspiration for exam
questions... at least, several questions closely related to some of mine
ended up on our mid-term and final (and hey, I'd already thought about them,
so that was lucky for me). Maybe she didn't do that consciously, because in
later classes the same thing happened, and those instructors never knew
about the notebooks.

   This system worked so well for my thinking processes that after that
semester I did it in all my classes... and right through grad school, though
by then I would jot questions into the notebook whenever they crossed my
mind, rather than at a set time.  I only taught undergrads two years, but I
taught them this as a survival skill -- sometimes groups had to create the
questions based their favourite class, sometimes on my class. Nearly all of
them liked it. 
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