I was wrong.
Recent news reports make it clear that not only does the problem still exist, some people—some very intelligent and influential people—don't even have a clue what it is. And that they're guilty of it.
Pardon me for being disheartened.
With recent events in mind and our relative proximity to Halloween, I've decided to examine plagiarism, what it is, where does it come from, and look at some personal and noted stories about its abuses. The stories, to be illustrative, will take awhile, so this subject will be a multipart series.
Plagiarism Defined:
Just so we're all on the same page, let's establish that plagiarism is not a citation problem. An MLA or APA manual entry on how to list your sources will be about as helpful avoiding plagiarism as owning The Joy of Cooking will help you avoid whiplash. The issue is not acknowledging that the words you are using are somebody else's AS YOU SAY/WRITE THEM.
According to my handy-dandy Apple dictionary, plagiarism is "The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." The school at which I worked—staff and students alike—called the offense cheating. In the English department, we had another word for it: stealing.
Some people, particularly offenders and their parents, considered our term harsh and offensive. Again, I refer to the Apple dictionary: "dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own." The two definitions seem remarkably similar, don't you think?
For whatever reason, the similarities never quite sunk in. "Well, it's not cheating!" offenders said. When asked how it wasn't, the excuse centered on the idea that information found publicly was to be used publicly with or without attribution. "If it's in the encyclopedia, it's fair game," they explained.
That was the beginning of my misshapen forehead as palm plants became prevalent.
The Cyber-Outburst
Back in the olden days of hard-copy everything—notecards, outlines, rough drafts, final drafts, and work cited pages—teachers and parents could easily monitor a student's research. Then came the proliferation of computers.
Word processing quickly replaced typing, abrasive erasers, and correction tape. At first, it was a revolution, a release for the creative juices. Editing became painless. Words, paragraphs, whole pages could easily be moved. Additions/deletions could be applied at will. Drafts which used to take hours or days could be generated and printed in mere minutes. What had been drudgery became simply distracting.
And then Al Gore invented the Internet.
Or somebody did.
After that came the World Wide Web and all Sheol showed up. Library stacks rapidly became obsolete. All the research a normal person needed to do could be done at a single monitor rather than having to prowl through the numerous volumes of Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, list article after article that may or may not be in the archives, and transfer information to 3X5 notecards.
Netscape and Google became more important than Encyclopedia Britannica. Magazine and newspapers appeared online. The blogosphere exploded. Information that once took weeks to find now took seconds.
It was great for teaching writing and research.
And then it wasn't.
At the same time writing became simpler, so did cheating. Particularly plagiarism. In fact, with the advent of the computer and the Internet, plagiarism became as commonplace as flatulence in a chili shop, the difference being that plagiarism is more accepted.
The culprit? Copy-paste.
One of the best tools of word processing became the most abused by writers in a hurry, especially the dilatory student hamstrung by shrinking deadlines. It was now too easy to find a source or complete paper, highlight the pertinent information, copy it, and plop it into your paper.
And it was "your paper." It had your name at the top. That's all that mattered. You knew it was good information. After all, it was on the Internet. No need to edit. Just plop it, print it, present it. NEXT!
Assuredly, "copy-paste" is a wonderful tool for dealing with quoted material. I don't mean to discredit it, and I surely don't want to give it up. But its ease of use is not a license to plagiarize. The information that can be easily quoted still needs to be attributed. It seems, though, that adding a simple According to ... prior to or immediately after such a quotation is too much work for some people. Hence, the rise in plagiaristic practices.
Sigh.
That brings me to the first of three horror stories that haunt me from my teaching days. Each is illustrative of the mindset of the plagiarist, indicative of the apparent futility of combating it, and instructive of the ignorance of the ethics of writing.
The Procrastinator
The assignment was simple. "Write a review of something artistic—painting, music, sculpture, movie, book—whatever interests you." The opinion expressed could be positive, negative, praising, scathing, humorous, or serious. Time was given to search material, organize thoughts, write a rough draft, revise it, and finish the final draft. Each class had its allotted computer lab time. The teacher was at the students' beck and call for assistance and direction.
As normal, some students used their time and resources wisely; some not so much; still others became quite adept at circumventing the school's firewalls preventing access to Facebook and YouTube. One particular young man managed to accomplish nothing in nearly five days in the lab, save inhaling and exhaling his appropriate share of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
No outline. Not even a Roman numeral.
No rough draft. Not even a title.
Heck, he didn't have a SUBJECT!
But he did keep the keyboard clear of fingerprints.
Then, on Friday, miraculously, a fully-formatted, albeit citation-deficient, movie review with his name attached appeared in my collection folder.
Confused by this apparent time warp/wondrous manifestation, I asked him, "Where did this come from?"
He stammered, shuffled, and muttered, "I ... uh ... I've been working at home." Then the bell rang. He slid amongst the exiting horde and disappeared out the door.
Just for fun and since it was my lunch hour, I typed the first five words of the boy's paper into Google. Strangely, the student's paper appeared on screen complete with still photos from the movie, a cast list, and a picture of somebody closely resembling Roger Ebert.
I printed the Google article and took it, along with the student's paper to the cafeteria. I found the boy with his friends and asked to talk to him privately. Before I could even ask the student anything, the boy blurted out, "I didn't cheat. I did that all myself!"
I paused a moment, then held up the two articles side by side.
Nervously sucking on his lower lip, the student leaned forward and quickly examined the papers. He straightened, put on his best befuddled look, and said, "I don't know how that happened."
I answered, "It's called plagiarism."
The boy' face twisted and in all seriousness asked, "Plagiarism? Is that another word for cheating, 'cause I didn't cheat. I printed that off myself."
So evidently, if you have command of keyboard shortcuts Command-C (copy), Command-V (paste), and Command-P (print), whatever emerges from the printer is yours, whether you composed the words yourself.
Unfortunately, the practice is not confined to high school sophomores; it has found its way into all areas of writing––professional, political, and personal. Here's hoping that audiences, voters, and romantic partners will react similarly to me in this story: Expand the supply of recyclable materials in the big blue bin at the end of the hall.
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