I adore Stephen’s Web. I’m addicted to his OL Daily newsletter. It feeds me things to chew on. I’m well nourished thanks to his dilligence.

Today, Stephen included a reference and link to Charles Nelson’s blog post Plagiarism: Another Perspective. This led me to another of Charles’ posts titled Plagiarism: Perspective and Context.

I’ve always found the topic of plagiarism fascinating. Since participating in ethics discussions at U of A, the topic has garnered more and more of my attention. However, I think a lot of my interest in plagiarism and it’s changing faces has to do with a lack of understanding about just what is and isn’t considered plagiarism. I know when I first attended university (over 12 years ago), there were no formal discussions in class about what it was, how to avoid it (proper citation methods) and where you could review the written university policy. In fact, it just didn’t seem talked about at all.

Fast forward to 2004 and I had returned to university. The field of study was different the second time round, so I was instructed to shift from MLA to APA citation styles in papers. Despite this shift in writing style, there was still no explaination of what plagiarism is, etc. There was, however, a huge emphasis on whether or not you got the capitalization correct in the references list at the end of the paper. *bangs head against wall* You can imagine the confusion that ensued when I asked how to go about referencing a conclusion made in an earlier paper (my a-ha moment if you will) in another paper later in the year.

So, what’s all of this got to do with Charles’ posts? In Plagiarism: Perspective and Context, Charles’ writes:

If university folks can disagree on the nature of plagiarism, then it seems likely that our students with their digital background will find the notion foreign — not incomprehensible, just foreign.

He’s referencing on-line plagiarism in his statement, but I think it could just as easily cover any form of it both inside and outside of the classroom. With the current state of confusion surrounding what is and is not considered plagiarism, and the varying shades of grey associated with the determination, it’s no wonder that I and many others struggle with the topic and are drawn to it moths to a flame.

If plagiarism could be clearly defined, outlined, taught from a young age and the definition made readily available to all, perhaps it would become less common rather than a seemily daily event. If nothing else, it may help reduce the amount of unintentional plagiarism – which in an academic world can be just as damaging to a person’s reputation and further study as intentional plagiarism – occurring today.

Side note: If anyone is aware of the proper method of citing your own unpublished work in papers please let me know. I ended up citing it as if it were a published article/paper but never did get clear direction at the time of writing. I’m still very fuzzy on the rules for avoiding self-plagiarism. Also, I’ve always wanted to know how something can be considered self-plagiarism if the content has never been published (though it has been reviewed and assigned a grade) and I’m still the copyright holder?

h/t Stephen’s Web

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