The BBC ran a story on plagiarism a couple of days ago. The main point was to present the work of Professor Sally Brown. The results are not surprising but the interesting thing is that this has become an issue to report on the BBC website (or maybe it was a slow news day!). Sally Brown says that plagiarism is affecting all UK universities: â??The ones that say they havenâ??t got a problem have got their heads in the sand.â??
I have written about university plagiarism before â?? both when itâ??s students plagiarising and when itâ??s the researchers. The non-recognition of the problem is not only due to the google-generation. There are too many examples of scholars schooled in pre-google, and indeed pre-Internet, who have been caught cheating in this way.
Professor Brown also comments on the flaws of software based solutions against plagiarism: â??The good plagiarists arenâ??t caught.â?? Again this is not new but it is interesting that it needs to be said.
But is â??goodâ?? plagiarism really plagiarism? The amount of work it takes to personalise a text can really be greater than writing it. Editing other peoples work is not an easy process and it is most definitely a learning process which the university in one way claims to be interested in.
If plagiarism is when the student (lets ignore the professional plagiarists for now) hands in someone elseâ??s work and claims that it is his/her own â?? by these standards ripping off someoneâ??s name from an essay and adding ones own is plagiarism. But so is bad or inadequate use of references.
All too often we demand that our students think independently on issues where many superior minds have thought for a long time. If the student â??simplyâ?? collects the thoughts of others and references this process well it is considered a fair essay â?? it lacks the individual thought. If the references are badly done its plagiarism.
Maybe, just maybe, we should begin to reappraise this process. In the age of Internet and CIO (Chief Information Officers) is the goal independent thought? Or is the goal the ability to sift through the mass of information and then present it in a new and coherent way? By focusing on the independent thought we are (indirectly) promoting the urge to plagiarise since the student always will be able to find someone who has had their idea before themâ?¦