Plagiarism at San Francisco State University

To whom it may concern,

Plagiarism is a problem for students, especially those in the university level. A lot of students get a college education so that they can get better jobs. If students’ tendency to plagiarize is not stopped within the university, their habit would form, resulting in dire consequences. There are different ways the problem can be approached. The way students are taught to write, informing them of what plagiarism is, and acknowledging that it is a problem at SFSU are important steps that will help plagiarism become less of a problem.

To ratify this problem, multiple steps can be taken. One important way, would be to adapt a better definition for plagiarism, university wide. The policies that SFSU as a school follows sometimes differ from the departments. Even within a department, teachers have their terms and policies that differ from their colleagues. An example of the discrepancies would be the debate if students should be allowed to reuse a paper they wrote for a different class. There are some teachers who allow students to reuse their papers, but there are also some who would consider that as a form of plagiarism.

The way teachers teach has a big impact on the problem. In Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad, Colin Sowden points out that many teachers use patch writing, copying pieces of text altering it a little and putting it into a paper (kind of like a big quilt…), to teach students who are learning English as a second language. Doing so allows them to teach about the grammatical structure of the language, and exposes them to new topics but adds to the plagiarism problem. Not knowing that the technique they use is a temporary stepping stone, those students will continue using that technique, assuming that it is an acceptable method of writing. With that in mind, they may continue to write in that method throughout their time at SFSU. The problem is not that small; students talk and compare notes a lot of times. Students that were taught using the patch writing technique might share this ‘technique’ for writing papers with their friends, causing the method to spread like a wildfire at the university. Since a teacher taught it, majority of the students will assume that the method is acceptable, and start using it in their own writing; thus causing a cycle effect that helps patch writing spread in the university.

As we are discussing teaching, it is important to teach and emphasis the importance of proper citation. Students often find themselves struggling to decide on what needs to be cited, and what does not. Not only that, but once they decided that something should be cited they are faced with another question: how to properly cite the source. The issue of proper citation can be addressed in English and/or introductory (or more basic) classes that all students have to take before they graduate (something like comm. 150) to ensure that students can learn about citation, and use the time they spend at SFSU to master the skills of using them. Taking into consideration that different departments have different expectations when it comes to citation, proper citation can be explained in more detail in introductory classes (maybe a class on what kind of citation is expected). As the classes get more advanced, teachers should have a file or link to the department policy, which would accessible to students in case they forget what kind of citation goes with their class. The second concern is about what to cite, which can be reworded to ‘common knowledge’. Only information that is not common knowledge needs to be cited, but that leads to the problem of finding common ground of what should be considered common knowledge. In smaller classes, teachers can mark places where they think the student should have cited, and take some points off. To get points back, it would then be the student’s responsibility to talk to the teacher and explain why that bit of information was not cited in the original paper. Thus allowing students to realize that they forgot to cite something, and offers them a chance to explain the reason they did or did not do something. In a larger class setting, teachers can emphasize what they want the students to look up. One example from laboratory classes is when the grading sheet asks for the literature value of something. Students are not expected to know the literature value, thus letting them know that the information will have to be researched on their own time. Hints like that would also remind students that they need to cite the information, since it is not common knowledge.

Another way to discourage plagiarism through teaching would be to encourage students to write original papers. If this method is used, ‘original’ needs to be clearly defined to the students. More emphasis can be placed on the fact that students need to analyze things, and write about it in their own words (like offering their own perspective on the information from the source). Doing so would lessen the pressure students have when they are told to write an original paper. This way, their papers will be original, since no one else sees things exactly the same; making learning a two way process and more interesting for the student and teacher. Students go to school to learn, but for the teachers being able to learn from the students would keep them interested. As a teacher, when grading essays, reading the same thing over and over again gets boring. When they read something new or see something analyzed differently from the majority, not only do they learn about a new perspective, they can also see that the paper is not plagiarized (killing two birds with one stone). In one of my English classes, we did a research on students and plagiarism, looking to see if there is a trend between different factors and plagiarism. The writing assignment for the project was to write a report of the findings, and since all the information is first hand data from the surveys and interviews, students have to write their own reports. Projects like those gets students more involved, and more interested in what they have to write, which in turn lessens the chances of them knowingly plagiarizing.
There is a system some stores use for shoplifters; when they are caught shoplifting, they have to take a picture with the item they stole, and the picture would then be posted on a wall for anyone to see. If a student is caught plagiarizing, a warning can be given, but if no changes come from it, they can be added to a list of people who plagiarize (maybe the names of the students should not be on the list that the whole student body can see). The list can then be posted in the Xpress so that students can see that plagiarism is a problem at SFSU, and that people do get caught. One of the best ways to get people to stop doing things they are not supposed to, can be to publically acknowledge that they did wrong. Sometimes, even the thought of their peers mocking them for doing something is enough to keep people from doing something they should not do (in this case plagiarize on their paper). Creating and using a system where people who do wrong are mocked or made uncomfortable is a method that works in the real world. CBS did a story about a sheriff in Texas, who got the idea from another sheriff, to paint the walls of the jail pink, and to have the inmates wear pink jumpsuits. A lot of the inmates choose to stay inside the jail, because they do not want to be seen wearing the pink jumpsuits. Since they do not want to wear the pink jump suit again, the numbers of re-offenders decrease.

What did you find?

There wasn't anything really surprising about the responses from the interview. In the survey data, I found it funny that a category had 100% of the people plagiarizing. Looking into it, there was only one person who fit the category, and just happened to plagiarize. Some of the numbers is not what I expected. For instance, I expected people who felt pressured to go out would have a higher percentage of people plagiarizing than people who don't really feel the pressure... so the numbers for that was really interesting to me.

What am I reading?

Truthfully, all I have been reading lately is all texts for class. Recently, the most enjoyable one would be excerpts from the book Don Quixote. Even though it was done for a class, the excerpts were really interesting, and I have wanted to read the book for a while, so it was really nice to have an incentive to read it.

On my own time, what I read really depends on my mood. Once in a while, I would get into periods where I would only read one type/genre of books. Most of the time, it is a combination of reading books I have already read before, and hunting down new books that look interesting. Because of that, my list of favorites is really everywhere. One of the groups that I often reread is my childish/fantasy group of books (knights, kings, etc.). A couple of years ago, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Terrier by Tamora Pierce (since my birthday was closer, she got me a copy of the book, and borrowed it once I was done) which is still up on my favorites list. To this day, that book is still one of my favorites, and I am still waiting on getting my hands on the next book. . . whenever it comes out.

Over spring break, I will probably be rereading things from class to do projects and essays. So, I cannot really say that I am looking forward to read those (maybe I’ll try to get ahead on readings for other classes. . . although I highly doubt that I will do it). Perhaps I will try to get some fun reading into my schedule, not sure yet though.

Idea Draft

One of the first things I would like to do in the paper would be to identify what academic writing is (is it anything that a teacher/professor assigns, or can it be something that has to do with research? What traits are used to identify academic writing?). Perhaps definitions from a dictionary or something like that? I may have to drop the definition idea though, when I went to do a quick web search, a Wikipedia article came up, and one pdf file that I think is legit but have not read yet. To me, it would important to know what kind of writing the prompt is discussing. As I am reading more articles on the topic, for now my stance is this: while the articles in Wikipedia may not be all accurate, there is a potential for the website to be used as a source in academic writing in the future; and depending on what the topic of the paper Wikipedia can be a good source for students to use (to tell the truth, I am still not really sure about what stance to take, so the following will just be me rambling about different points I see so far).

So what makes a good source? What is a source? Another definition would work well in my next point, to define a source. Is a source only something we do a quote or paraphrase from? What about other article that we read about the topic but did not use directly (or at least consciously) in the paper? If sources only include things that we directly quote from, then the accuracy of the website would play a big role in whether or not Wikipedia should be allowed. But if a source is pretty much anything writers get ideas from, the technically Wikipedia could be included in the source list. Some people are saying that it could be a good place to start researching from, (like a stepping stone). If that is the case, (and depending on the definition) the Wikipedia should be allowed as a source. I cannot remember where, but it was stated somewhere, that an encyclopedia should not be cited as a source in college academic writhing to start with. . .
Wikipedia as an experiment. There are people who see Wikipedia as a silly world wide experiment. I actually wrote the paragraph generator paragraph on this point. I went with the fact that with everyone contributing in the articles, in the future, it is possible to make Wikipedia a legit source (kind of like the saying that goes something like one mind is not better than a bunch of minds, or something like that. . . ). I will probably post the paragraph up eventually, after some editing.

Wikipedia as a stepping stone. I am borrowing the idea that with the bibliography part of the article, students can get something similar to a ‘starting list’ of places to look. The research has to start somewhere, so this could be a good stepping stone for the actual paper, and more creditable sources.

What is the subject? While there are many teachers who do not want students to use Wikipedia, there are some who actually encourage their students to use it. What is the difference? Perhaps what the information is used for? I would venture a guess that science teachers may allow Wikipedia, because students are using it more as a rough guide to see if their results are similar to what is expected. Where language teachers, or even just professors in grad school would prefer students to just go out and search for the answers they are looking for.

How good are the people working on the project? In one of the articles about the ‘joke’ Wikipedia article pointed out that the original article was edited before the discrepancy was found. The editor only corrected a spelling mistake the original author made. That is one of the problems of giving anyone who has access to the internet to change the article.

Accuracy? A lot is being said about accuracy of the article, but I have been hearing and reading a lot about how Wikipedia can sometimes be more accurate than the published encyclopedias. One point I would make for that would be that only a selected committee edits an edition of published encyclopedias, where as there are more people looking over the same article (needing fresh eyes to catch more mistakes). I would think that there are more edits on Wikipedia than published editions, since those take so much more time.

Conspiracy? This thought just popped into my mind as I was thinking to finish up this draft. I am not saying that criticism is planted, but could some of it be that the published encyclopedias are losing money, and need to discredit Wikipedia to keep some revenue? Most people would not pay for the same or at least similar information that they can get for free. . . Well not that many people by encyclopedias to start with. . .

Yup, that will be my ramble this time. Now, I just need to take a stance and reorganize my points. You ok over there? Did I lose you somewhere in the middle?

NCTE & ‘mixing’ not plagiarizing

Although the author claims that she was just ‘mixing’ and that it should not be seen as plagiarizing, I think that it can be debatable. There are some books that I have read in the past that is based on historical figures, but the authors made the book into a diary in the person’s view (they had sources at the back of the book, along with actual pictures). I would consider that or something like that mixing. But having page in a book pretty much word for word the same, is really pushing the line between mixing and plagiarizing. Yes, mixing ‘allows’ people to use other people’s work/idea, and then put a different interpretation to it. But I think have one whole page of someone else’s work is a little overboard.

The author brings up an interesting point (one that we have mentioned in class before) that most of the younger generations (students) see plagiarizing differently from most of the older generation (most importantly teachers). It partly has to do with the fact that copying text is so much easier now. Technology has made is so much easier for people to find different sources, and more information. At the same time, it also indirectly encourages, or at least makes it easier to simply copy and paste sections of text. With the internet, it is easy for people to read a bunch of articles they find, read them all and only quote a few. In the citation, a lot of time the works that they read yet did not directly quote from is forgotten. Perhaps to avoid making that mistake, just list all sources in the bibliography or works cited page just in case. (I know that when I write, some of my phrases or word choices differ and is influenced by what I read around the time I write my paper).

Personally, I found it surprising that the girl in the article was still one of the finalists, even though the judges knew about the plagiarism. Perhaps to writing society is being more open minded (or some similar word that is not coming to me right now) about the issue.

I agree with the person who wrote the New York Times article, a few words or phrases that are similar, is accepted. But whole page or more is really pushing the standards or at least what is accepted. This article really puts most of the other articles on plagiarism and creates an example.

While doing proper citation of sources is rather confusing, there are people, websites, and even software that would help the general public with making proper citations (I was surprised to learn how Microsoft word 2007 has a reference menu that has helps with the citation). So it should not have been hard for her to come up with some kind of page with her sources listed out.

Inventing the University

One of the first thoughts that came to me when reading this article is how Bartholomae addresses the performance/authentic self indirectly. The mention of the writer and authority reminded me of another class I am taking, where we were talking about the authority, and how his authority changes between the first and second part of the book (Don Quixote). From the first part of the article, I am pretty sure that Bartholomae does not think that a student is an authentic self, at least when it comes to writing academic papers. He makes the point that students write differently, depending on who their audience is, and why they are writing the paper. I think he makes a good point that students have to ‘target’ their audience. Depending on who their audience is, the student can use jargon from a certain study without confusing the reader. One would not write a paper full of math or science jargon for an English class.

Continuing on the first paragraph, I think he is saying that people code switch when writing. Changing the way things are worded when talking to different people is really important (especially when one is trying to make a point). People talk to children and teachers differently. Can you see someone using a lot of college level academic jargon when talking to a child? The poor child would be so confused after talking to the person.

Through the article, I think that the author takes his writing really seriously. Towards the beginning of the paper, he points out that a technique would only work if they treat writing as words on a page. With that comment, one can tell that he believes that writing is more than just words on a piece of paper. His writing is influenced with his opinion, and perspective of the world around him. While there are people who write, just to make a living, he gives me the impression of wanting to be a writer because that is what he chooses to do. Since he is painting the people who write as a job in such bad light, I hope he is the type of person who likes to write, or is someone who writes for themselves while taking into account of who he is writing for.

I did not really notice it myself, how writing differs depending on what that piece of writing is supposed to do. While I know that writing lab reports is really different from writing papers, I did not take into account how I am unconsciously tailoring the language and phrases I use in paper to the audience.

Blog List. . . .

I know that we were supposed to find more blogs to follow (I'm still looking for more), but I will write this for the three I have up right now. Maybe there is a better way of looking for blogs, if anyone has a better way than typing in phrases into google blog search (that is how I found two out of the three so far), please let me know. *Ok, so now that I have found enough for the assignment, it is fine, but if anyone has a better way to search for more blogs, please let me know*

My Abstract Thoughts. . . well I actually know the person writing the blog, but I find it interesting, firstly because it is also what I think is 'homework' blog (just like how this one is right now), and secondly, I am interesting in seeing what she has to do and read in the class.

Jane Austen. I found this one through google blog search. So far, I have read two of her books, and liked it, and this site gives different perspectives of pretty much all her stories, so it would be interesting to see what other people thing, or come up with from the same book.

America's Most Wanted. This is my attempt to keep up with the show. I used to watch it every week, but have been busy the last few weeks when the show is on. To this day, I don't know why I watched the show when I was younger, since I was always scared during the clips. . .

Grey's Anatomy. . . well, with this one, I just started watching the show on TV, so I decided that I would like to read some insight so here is the link.

Dale Chihuly. I saw a special exhibit they had on him at the Legion of Honor and LOVED the pieces he designed. I will be waiting to see if there will be more information and artwork from this artist. But since this has not been updated for three years, here is my last blog for the blog roll for now.

Koit. I have grown up listening to this radio station, and from the list of blogs, I like to look at different ones depending on the most interesting story I hear on the radio.

Ok, so remember how at the beginning of this post I was saying that I could not find a blog. . . well, now I know that a lot of my random article reading comes from blogs. The article about recycling caught my eye (garbage nigh, sigh), and then I saw the link to the author's blog. Some of the articles look interesting. Can't wait to see what else will be posted!

My Word! Chapter Three

Observing the Performance Self

Throughout the chapter, something one of my teachers talked about kept coming to mind. During one of his classes, he brought up the term ‘code switching’. His explanation was that we talk and act differently when we are with different people, and in different environments. When he asked the class ‘who does not think they code switch’, a lot of people raised their hands. Then, he asked people to think about the way they talk to their friends, and see if they use the same terms, and attitude when talking to their teachers/parents/elders. When he asked the question again, no one raised their hand. I think his explanation is another way of talking about the performance self. To me, authentic self is being true to one’s inner self. The authentic self would not let others pressure them into doing things that go against what they wanted to do or what they believe in. Where the performance self may be an instinct, or a purposeful reaction.

I do not see myself as a performance self, or an authentic self. It feels as if the two are two ends of a spectrum (I took way too many science classes. . .) where I feel that I am somewhere in the middle. While I try to be as true to myself as possible, I know for a fact that I act differently in different situations. I act differently to someone I just met versus a childhood friend, and there are some people in my life who I tend to ignore most of the time. Before reading the article about performance self, I would have probably said that I am an authentic self, but after reading the article, I will stick to the grey area between the two.

My reaction to Blum's statement on p. 89 that "The performance self is more prone to cheat and plagiarize than the authentic self . . . For a performance self, intellectual property is a quaint yet meaningless notion." so I copied this from the 114 blog):
The chapter points out that there is an emphasis on grades, and impressing teachers (or people’s bosses). To address the emphasis on grades now a day, there are teachers who like students to have multiple sources in their papers to show that they did their research, while there are also some who want the students to show that they were in class (there was a girl in the chapter whose philosophy teacher was like this). There are some cases where the performance self is encouraged to use other people's ideas and the only thing that saves them from plagiarizing is their citation or what their teacher thinks. I agree that there are some students out there that believe that they are forced into cheating or plagiarizing.

As Susan Blum says, the authentic self and the performance self are models, and let’s face it, there are very few things in life that follows a model (no matter how much we wish it would . . . unfortunately). So I guess this is one of those times when it is alright for me not to be able to make up my mind.

Second Chapter of My Word!

This second chapter of My Word! is packed with interesting information. I liked how she used some of the transcripts from the study she did to help get an idea of how other college students see plagiarism. The way the chapter was separated made it seem easier to read. It was really interesting to read about how copyright developed, and how who the true owner of the paper/article. When I got to the footnote section of the book, how I wished I was reading this a couple of semesters ago. There was a last minute group project we had to do, and during the last group meeting we had before the project was due, one of the group members decided to argue about footnotes for the whole hour we met up. Anyways, back to the book. I guess since I don’t really watch as much TV as I would like to, I don’t find the people around me quoting as often as the book makes it out to be (that or maybe they just don’t tell me. . . but they would normally use that as an excuse to tease me a little. . . hmmm. . . ). While sitting in places, while listening around me, I would hear a movie/TV reference once in a while (I only said that I don’t watch much, but between what I do watch, and loving friends, I do know some of the more popular quotes). It is good to know that I am not the only one who has problems with citing sources once in a while, and that most teachers really look into cases before bringing up the plagiarism case to the dean.

But it is true, no matter how original people try to be, we are influenced by other works.

Should a charge of plagiarism ruin your life?

Wow there are so many different ways of seeing or thinking about plagiarism. To mast, in the beginning, it would seem like a really bad thing to have people copy from you. But after a while, it can be seen as a compliment to the ‘original’ author. The piece of writing must have been good for people to read it, and like it enough to copy it into their own writing. Not properly citing the work is similar to disrespecting the original author. There are times when people do not mean to plagiarize, or they might cite their sources incorrectly. That is similar to when people don’t show the ‘proper’ respect to others. Using that analogy, it would also help explain the difference between cultures, and even age groups. Going back to the reading, I guess I can see how copying information gathered by a person without consent and using details from the author’s life in a work are two totally different things. Using life details just feels like such a bigger breach of privacy. Between the ownership of words, and copyright laws, this is starting to get a little confusing. Perhaps it is because plagiarism is governed by ethical rules, and to tell the truth, different people have different stands on ethics. It is interesting how there are some cases where it is alright to copy someone else’s work. The rules regarding written work is super strict, and yet there are so many instances where music is somewhat copied from artist to artist, and yet it seems like it is nothing. In the music world, it is seen as influence, or tweaking the original music. While they cannot outright copy the music note for note, having parts that are similar (like patch working in writing) is acceptable in that industry. In the end, I found it a little funny how the person writing the play acknowledges her other sources, just not some of them. And how do you deal with the plagiarist being plagiarized?

What is an essay?

In the past, the essay has at least five paragraphs; the introduction, at least three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. Some teacher had a very specific way they wanted the essays to be done. I had a teacher who wanted a five paragraph essay, and each paragraph had to go with a certain pattern. Within each paragraph, it had to be a topic sentence, concrete detail, two commentary sentences (repeat the concrete detail and two commentary a few times) and lastly a conclusion sentence.

There are different types of essays. Research, debate, and probably what most teachers want from students when they want papers (?). To me, essays are a little more formal than other types of writing. Throughout elementary and high school, essays seem to be a lot of points compared to other assignments. It used to be that essays took a long time to write. A class can easily spend a whole month under the guidance of a teacher (ok, so the teacher sets the due dates, and the students drag their feet to meet the deadline) to produce THE final copy of an essay to be graded. When writing an essay, there is at least one draft, before the final version. It is always important to keep track of the information gathered for the paper, because there has to be a works cited page at the very end (with proper citation throughout the paper).

For me, writing an essay really depends on what I am writing about. In my middle school, we used to have an overarching topic that we work off of for the whole school year. There would be papers, projects, and one major oral report that count for a large part of our grades (depending on what subject is involved, mostly English and sometimes science or history). One year, the topic was family history/immigrants. For one of my major papers, I interviewed my uncle, and wrote about what it was like for him growing up. It was really interesting to learn and write about my uncle during his teenage years. The teacher allowed us to present the information we gathered however we wanted to. I chose to write in my uncle’s perspective, giving people a glimpse of what he did outside of school. So far, that is my favorite writing assignment any teacher has given me, because it gave me a chance to see what it was like growing up for him.

The definition of essay by American Heritage is: “An essay is a short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author. Something resembling such a composition: a photojournalistic essay. A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing: an essay of the students’ capabilities. An initial attempt or endeavor, especially a tentative attempt.” I think another way of seeing it, could be any type of paper in which a person approaches the challenge (of writing the paper) with the best effort they have.

I guess the definition really widens what an essay can be.

Introduction and First Chapter of My Word!

I did not think that gender and sense of alienation are some of the factors that would make a person more likely to cheat. The author makes an interesting comparison when she compares plagiarism in college to a big spider in a web of factors (p.3). I did not notice, until reading Susan Blum’s observation of how college students are in a hurry because of different factors. Thinking about what the author said, it can be said that this generation of students read and write more, it is just that some of the reading and writing is more for entertainment. It is just that a lot of the writings are in the form of internet communications, and do not match up to the standards teachers have.

It was really fascinating to read about how the information was gathered for this book, and what the author did with the information gathered. Reading about how much paper the transcribed conversations take up was a shock to me. It was interesting to read about how hard she tried to keep the identity of the participants of the study anonymous. I liked how the author went off, explaining why she changed the name of the school where the study took place.

I guess plagiarism happens a lot, in society. The definition of the word differs from person to person, and the actions taken against a student really depends on how the teacher’s opinion of how serious the offense is. I find it odd how students will be penalized if they are ‘caught’ plagiarizing, and yet people are allowed to publish things in academic journals that may have been plagiarized, but there is no action taken to reprimand them (and the thought that so many journals are essentially the same. . .). The author points out that plagiarism is something that has been taking place for a long time, it is just that there seems to be a spike in plagiarism now.

I agree the Susan Blum; plagiarism is a confusing issue (p.21). The introduction and first chapter really opens up a lot of questions to me. There were a few places where the author made references to things that are ‘common knowledge’. But what is common knowledge? Like plagiarism, what common knowledge is differs from person to person. Would using an odd fact without citing it be seen as plagiarism? If so, how should it be cited (student’s memory?)?