Plagiarism and how to avoid it

[smally]

Here is an interesting paper on plagiarism as it is understood in Western society. It reveals how culture can influence the views on plagiarism with students from different countries.

The issue of relations between culture and language learning generally and acquisition of English as a second language particularly has been of interest to many researchers and has become a center of attention during last 10-15 years due to the number of non-native speaking students raising in the United States. With the raise of the interest towards the issue raised also the number of questions to be answered: does culture have any role in ESL learning and if yes than how big is it? What are the differences between writing styles and formats among different cultures and what difficulties they may cause? How students might be helped to overcome them? These and many other questions resulted in a number of works related to the notion of culture as well as different aspects of the issue.

Thus, Eli Hinkel in “Culture in second language teaching and learning” thoroughly addresses many issues critical to culture influence on ESL writing. Ilona Leki in her “Understanding ESL Writers: A Guide for Teachers” devotes a whole chapter to the description of classroom behaviors and expectations which ESL writers from different cultural backgrounds may demonstrate.. One of the focuses in the literature addressed to culture-related issues in ESL writing is the notion of plagiarism: term which is defined in many sources as “unacknowledged exploitation of another writer’s ideas or words, or both”. In other words, plagiarism is offering someone else's work as your own, whether one sentence or whole paragraphs, and whether from an internet source, book, periodical, or the writing of other students. Penalties for plagiarism range from failing the assignment to failing the course or suspension from the university, depending on the seriousness of the breach of academic integrity. Of course, plagiarism is not only ESL writers’ problem and is an issue in native speakers writing as well, but it is especially problematic in ESL writing and the reasons for ESL writers’ plagiarism are quite different from those of native speakers.

As researchers of the field state, all the plagiarizing students may be classified into two groups: those who do not understand Western notions of plagiarism, and consequently are not aware of plagiarism in their own writing, and those who understand Western notions of writing and still plagiarize. First of all, plagiarism may be explained by such factors as students’ beliefs and values, personality, and of course, cultural and educational background. Thus, Sherman brings the example of Italian students who viewed copying as not only acceptable but as a mark of respect to the original authors. Such an approach is common among Asian students, many of which are taught to respect and learn what is written by famous authors. Moreover, in some cultures the ability to piece together information from different sources and authors is a proof of good academic standing. Todd mentions the case with an African student who was sure that he could use other authors’ ideas as long as they were the same as his own.

Another feature of culture characteristic is the idea of ownership. Students from countries where knowledge tends to be a communal property, will have quite a different approach to the plagiarism, failing to acknowledge the value of intellectual property as an extremely abstract notion. Thus, in many countries of ex-Soviet Union mental and consequently, personal property, as well as the copyright don’t have the same value as they have in the western reality. Thus, one student interviewed by Hiland thought that using the formula “author said” helped her to avoid plagiarism, another student found senseless to change authors’ words if they are written better than she could write herself.

Now one of the main problems in the issue is how to help students become aware of plagiarism. As the researchers agree, there are two ways of helping students become aware of plagiarism and avoid it: direct methods and indirect methods. Many teachers feel uncomfortable at blaming their students of plagiarism because it is considered to be a major academic offence. Many teachers chose indirect ways of bringing the notion of plagiarism to students’ attention. A study leaded by Hiland, showed that teachers’ tendency to rely on indirect feedback and reluctance to refer to the issue directly might lead to many misunderstandings and even more complexity of the situation. Thus, it is important that ESL teachers are aware of cultural explanations of plagiarism but being too sensitive to the issue might prevent them from helping students understand and avoid plagiarism.

Quite another case is when students are aware of the “offence” but still do it and as a rule have ready explanations, such as:

1. I had to hand in a good work.

2. The instructor doesn’t speak about this, so everything is fine.

3. The instructor said “Work together”

4. I don’t know what I can do to avoid plagiarism.

5. But paraphrasing would be disrespectful!

6. I can’t paraphrase: it is too difficult.

As Yamada mentions although the understanding of the cultural factors influencing plagiarism improves, it doesn’t seem to increase our ability to help the students to avoid plagiarism. The most common instruction is “paraphrase”, but it is the paraphrasing that represents a great difficult to these students. Teachers’ main focuses should be to make sure that students understand the definition and gravity of plagiarism, that they understand when quotes are appropriate and when a paraphrase would be more appropriate and that they can provide an adequate paraphrase when necessary. Many ESL students have difficulties in combining what they have read with what is their own. On more advanced levels it is important to help students to learn how to show the research they have done but at the same time write something original new, refer to authorities but be able to show agreement or disagreement with them.

If up to recently plagiarism has been considered to be a Western problem, now it tends to become a global problem. A number of researches have been conducted by different people to determine the level of students’ awareness about plagiarism in different countries and compare them. Thus, in a study conducted by a group of linguists from California State University, Pomona, the students from China, USA, Latvia and Lithuania were surveyed to see how they regarded the concept of plagiarism and how they thought it could be avoided.

As the results suggest, one of the main plagiarism sources nowadays is Internet. The concept is the same, the field of plagiarism just moved from the pen and paper to global web.

Results from these studies support the idea of plagiarism being greatly influenced by historical, political, economic, pedagogical, technological and social factors.

Кстати, я получила 5 за эту работу, так что можно ее перевести и сделать из нее курсовую на русском языке. Плагиатируйте, эли

[alena1801]

Так это твоя работа,или ты её того...сплагиатила?

[smally]

Так это твоя работа,или ты её того...сплагиатила?

Конечно, моя! Ты что, по этому предмету у меня был самый строгий преподаватель. У нее сплагиатируешь - вылетишь из универа моментально.