More Plagiarism

The blog post for this week is over two papers about plagiarism- "The Scarlet P: Plagiarism, Panopticism, and the Rhetoric of Academic IntegrIntegrity by Sean Zwagerman and "Beyond “Gotcha!”: Situating Plagiarism in Policy and Pedagogy" by Margaret Price.

The paper by Margaret Price starts off by discussing how is necessary to define plagiarism; yet, it is nearly impossible to define. Students are the academic group that are most likely to commit Plagiarism and students learn best by given a "defined space," a region that should be avoided to avoid plagiarism. However, Price writes that it is nearly impossible to put and squeeze the term plagiarism into a small space. "Plagiarism is not stable. What we think of as plagiarism shifts across historical time periods, across cultures, across workplaces, even across academic disciplines." I found this quote to be interesting because it is very true-plagiarism much like many other things, change over time. These changes can be a result of shifts in technology, norms, etc. Professionals have to realize that plagiarism is not cut or dry- its more of on a case by case and sources are available to students more than ever, making plagiarism subjective.

The paper by Sean Zwagerman makes a point that a made earlier, it is extremely easy to plagiarize with the vast amount of available information on the internet that is both easy-access and not necessarily looked down upon. Many teachers say it's okay to look on the internet just to get a preliminary idea of a topic. Students end up not citing these beginning sources in the end, and it might damage them or result in getting the dread "plagiarism = F." place. A quote that I found interesting was when Zwagerman stated, "Just as some students will choose to cheat, teachers choose how to respond." If there isn't a rigid structure of punishment for plagiarism, then there isn't rigid avoidance by students.