why plagiarism is bad
Mar. 29th, 2010 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyLong ago, when I was teaching, one of the things that frustrated me the most was my students' inability to understand why plagiarism was bad. (And, yes, I came across that frequently. I never had to initiate formal proceedings, although I came close a couple times, but it was something I had to be vigilant for, and had to deal with on several separate occasions.) Some of them didn't understand what plagiarism was, and I said many bad and probably libelous things about the educational system of the state in which I live (not just for that reason, but that's another post). But even those who understood what it was and understood they weren't supposed to do it, didn't seem to have a grasp on why.
I'm thinking about this today because a friend is dealing with a non-academic case of plagiarism (and because even though I'm not a teacher anymore and don't want to be, part of my brain really latched onto the conditioning that makes you look for examples to use in teaching everywhere you go--as, for example, my realization about the grammatical uses of Bon Jovi); it's a good (where by "good," of course, I mean "morally bad"), clear example, thanks to the PayPal Donate button: asking people to pay you for words you didn't write is Not Okay. It's theft.
But, of course, in academia, the students aren't getting paid. They are, in fact, the ones doing the paying, and it occurs to me that that may be, in part, where the problem is coming from. Because they--or, more accurately, their parents--were the ones shelling out the money, some of my students seemed to feel that they were therefore entitled to get good grades with the minimum of work. (And notice the way in which the confluence of those two influences, money and grades, completely eradicates the whole notion of learning from the situation. And there's another post, about why grades are a terrible idea and a call for sweeping, Utopianist education reform. But I think I'll restrain myself from making that post today.) And it's not a very long step from that idea to the idea that, really, they shouldn't have to do any work at all to get a good grade, and that's where plagiarism starts to look all too tempting.
(I should add that I did not encounter this attitude among what my university calls "non-traditional" students, by which it means students who did something else for a while (one year, five years, twenty years . . .) after high school. Those students, each and every one of whom I treasured, knew what they (or possibly their parents or spouses) were paying for and why they wanted it, and they exhibited no sense of entitlement at all, except in the sense that they felt they were entitled to get the most out of their education that they could, and about that they were 100% correct.
(I should also add that I did not encounter this attitude in all of my "traditional" students, but it afflicted a minority large enough to be noticeable. And problematic.)
And here's the other way in which plagiarism is wrong: it assumes, and in fact enforces, an antagonistic relationship between student and teacher. It assumes the teacher is a blocking figure, standing between the student and what they want. (And notice again that what the student wants is not knowledge but good grades.) And it assumes that the student is justified in whatever bullshit, lies, and treachery they choose to employ to get what they want. Plagiarism isn't just about being lazy--although it's that, too--it's about cheating the system. And you only do that if you think the system is cheating you.
And, you know, I understand why some of my students thought that. I principally taught English courses for non-English-majors, so my students were fulfilling requirements that had nothing to do (at least on the surface) with their goals. Business majors; pre-med majors; engineering majors; student athletes, who need good grades so they can keep playing their sport (another post I won't write today is the one about the fucked up nature of the relationship between college education and college sports, particularly, though not exclusively, football and basketball): I understand why it might seem to them that an English class was a waste of their time, and therefore, if you extrapolate a little, a cheat--particularly if you're not doing well and you need that point on your GPA in order to achieve whatever it is you're actually interested in--and therefore fair game for cheating. I would, by the way, argue vehemently against the idea that English classes are a waste of time for any major, and not because I think everyone should be well-rounded or because I think literature makes you a better person. But because nobody, and I mean nobody getting a college degree in America is aiming for a job that will actually enable them to avoid the use of the English language entirely (even if a lot of engineering majors want to believe that job is out there). In today's grant-writing climate, being able to write a coherent paragraph might even arguably be a survival skill. If I could go back and have those classes to teach over again, I'd spend some time talking to them about why they were being forced to take this class and what concrete skills and advantages they were going to get out of it. I actually did that with the last class I taught (ironically, that was the class for English majors), where we talked about what an English essay is supposed to do and why I was trying to teach them to do it. Nobody ever explained that to me (I figured it out by osmosis, somewhere around my junior year of college, I think), and my students told me that nobody had ever explained it to them, either, and I have to say, pedagogically, that's just dumb. But it's also very common.
Plagiarism is morally bad because it's an attempt to get something for nothing, like any other kind of theft. Academic plagiarism is bad for that reason, and also because in their efforts to cheat the system, plagiarizers are, yes, cheating themselves. (Cue the After-School Special, yes, I know.) But the problem is that they've been mis-educated and misled into a worldview where they can't see that. Hence the whole subculture of buying papers online and fraternities keeping files on assignments in O-Chem and other weeder courses that are taught the same way year after year. (And, hello, shall we consider everything that's wrong, pedagogically, with the whole idea of the "weeder course"?) Because education has been turned into warfare between students and teachers, the spoils being the student's GPA. That's the thing that needs to change: this culture of antagonism. Stern punitive measures--The War On Plagiarism--don't ensure that students won't plagiarize; all they do is ensure that students will lie about it when caught. And be even MORE resentful of the system. Teaching students why they are required to take certain classes, why they are asked to write papers--teaching them the value of their education rather than expecting them to accept it based on a flat, and implicitly antagonistic, Because I told you so--that will start to unmake the cultural atmosphere which encourages academic plagiarism in the first place. Abolishing GPA would (I think) do even more, but even my Utopianist vision doesn't think that's going to happen any time soon.
It won't reach everyone--because nothing ever does--but it would at least make discussion possible, and it might give students something they can grasp instead of the flat and slippery, "Because it's wrong." Or possibly that's Utopianist thinking right there.
Education should be a cooperative venture between student and teacher. It should be empowering. Students should be baffled by why plagiarism seems like a good idea, not by the reasons why they shouldn't do it.
And while I'm wishing, I'd like a million dollars and a pony.
I'm thinking about this today because a friend is dealing with a non-academic case of plagiarism (and because even though I'm not a teacher anymore and don't want to be, part of my brain really latched onto the conditioning that makes you look for examples to use in teaching everywhere you go--as, for example, my realization about the grammatical uses of Bon Jovi); it's a good (where by "good," of course, I mean "morally bad"), clear example, thanks to the PayPal Donate button: asking people to pay you for words you didn't write is Not Okay. It's theft.
But, of course, in academia, the students aren't getting paid. They are, in fact, the ones doing the paying, and it occurs to me that that may be, in part, where the problem is coming from. Because they--or, more accurately, their parents--were the ones shelling out the money, some of my students seemed to feel that they were therefore entitled to get good grades with the minimum of work. (And notice the way in which the confluence of those two influences, money and grades, completely eradicates the whole notion of learning from the situation. And there's another post, about why grades are a terrible idea and a call for sweeping, Utopianist education reform. But I think I'll restrain myself from making that post today.) And it's not a very long step from that idea to the idea that, really, they shouldn't have to do any work at all to get a good grade, and that's where plagiarism starts to look all too tempting.
(I should add that I did not encounter this attitude among what my university calls "non-traditional" students, by which it means students who did something else for a while (one year, five years, twenty years . . .) after high school. Those students, each and every one of whom I treasured, knew what they (or possibly their parents or spouses) were paying for and why they wanted it, and they exhibited no sense of entitlement at all, except in the sense that they felt they were entitled to get the most out of their education that they could, and about that they were 100% correct.
(I should also add that I did not encounter this attitude in all of my "traditional" students, but it afflicted a minority large enough to be noticeable. And problematic.)
And here's the other way in which plagiarism is wrong: it assumes, and in fact enforces, an antagonistic relationship between student and teacher. It assumes the teacher is a blocking figure, standing between the student and what they want. (And notice again that what the student wants is not knowledge but good grades.) And it assumes that the student is justified in whatever bullshit, lies, and treachery they choose to employ to get what they want. Plagiarism isn't just about being lazy--although it's that, too--it's about cheating the system. And you only do that if you think the system is cheating you.
And, you know, I understand why some of my students thought that. I principally taught English courses for non-English-majors, so my students were fulfilling requirements that had nothing to do (at least on the surface) with their goals. Business majors; pre-med majors; engineering majors; student athletes, who need good grades so they can keep playing their sport (another post I won't write today is the one about the fucked up nature of the relationship between college education and college sports, particularly, though not exclusively, football and basketball): I understand why it might seem to them that an English class was a waste of their time, and therefore, if you extrapolate a little, a cheat--particularly if you're not doing well and you need that point on your GPA in order to achieve whatever it is you're actually interested in--and therefore fair game for cheating. I would, by the way, argue vehemently against the idea that English classes are a waste of time for any major, and not because I think everyone should be well-rounded or because I think literature makes you a better person. But because nobody, and I mean nobody getting a college degree in America is aiming for a job that will actually enable them to avoid the use of the English language entirely (even if a lot of engineering majors want to believe that job is out there). In today's grant-writing climate, being able to write a coherent paragraph might even arguably be a survival skill. If I could go back and have those classes to teach over again, I'd spend some time talking to them about why they were being forced to take this class and what concrete skills and advantages they were going to get out of it. I actually did that with the last class I taught (ironically, that was the class for English majors), where we talked about what an English essay is supposed to do and why I was trying to teach them to do it. Nobody ever explained that to me (I figured it out by osmosis, somewhere around my junior year of college, I think), and my students told me that nobody had ever explained it to them, either, and I have to say, pedagogically, that's just dumb. But it's also very common.
Plagiarism is morally bad because it's an attempt to get something for nothing, like any other kind of theft. Academic plagiarism is bad for that reason, and also because in their efforts to cheat the system, plagiarizers are, yes, cheating themselves. (Cue the After-School Special, yes, I know.) But the problem is that they've been mis-educated and misled into a worldview where they can't see that. Hence the whole subculture of buying papers online and fraternities keeping files on assignments in O-Chem and other weeder courses that are taught the same way year after year. (And, hello, shall we consider everything that's wrong, pedagogically, with the whole idea of the "weeder course"?) Because education has been turned into warfare between students and teachers, the spoils being the student's GPA. That's the thing that needs to change: this culture of antagonism. Stern punitive measures--The War On Plagiarism--don't ensure that students won't plagiarize; all they do is ensure that students will lie about it when caught. And be even MORE resentful of the system. Teaching students why they are required to take certain classes, why they are asked to write papers--teaching them the value of their education rather than expecting them to accept it based on a flat, and implicitly antagonistic, Because I told you so--that will start to unmake the cultural atmosphere which encourages academic plagiarism in the first place. Abolishing GPA would (I think) do even more, but even my Utopianist vision doesn't think that's going to happen any time soon.
It won't reach everyone--because nothing ever does--but it would at least make discussion possible, and it might give students something they can grasp instead of the flat and slippery, "Because it's wrong." Or possibly that's Utopianist thinking right there.
Education should be a cooperative venture between student and teacher. It should be empowering. Students should be baffled by why plagiarism seems like a good idea, not by the reasons why they shouldn't do it.
And while I'm wishing, I'd like a million dollars and a pony.
