This article was originally published in the Community College Humanities Association newsletter "The Humanist" in the Fall of 2011.
The Hidden Discourse of Plagiarism: A Reappraisal of Fox’s
“Heartbreaking Problem”
Author: Don Jacobson, MA
College of
DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL
Oakton
Community College, Des Plaines, IL
Benedicitne
University, Lisle, IL
Late
summer brings the inevitable gatherings of faculty and administrators to
celebrate the annual ritual of the launching of another school year. And, equally inevitable, comes the
discussions decrying the increasing prevalence of plagiarism.
There seem to be two themes
which run through these lamentations...
1) Students think plagiarism is acceptable because they have been brought up in a world of cut-and-paste ease abetted by a “succeed at any cost” mentality. To them, the idea of ownership of an idea is of less importance than meeting a deadline.
2) Students are seeking the easiest way to reduce their workload. Add to this a belief that academic expectations for “unimportant” but often mandatory courses force students to “waste” time on activities that will not immediately translate into financial gain.[1]
1) Students think plagiarism is acceptable because they have been brought up in a world of cut-and-paste ease abetted by a “succeed at any cost” mentality. To them, the idea of ownership of an idea is of less importance than meeting a deadline.
2) Students are seeking the easiest way to reduce their workload. Add to this a belief that academic expectations for “unimportant” but often mandatory courses force students to “waste” time on activities that will not immediately translate into financial gain.[1]
The reactions to plagiarism
frequently rest on the optimistic hope that most students are somehow ignorant
of what plagiarism is, and that pupils will not plagiarize if they are
re-educated (shades of the camps!).
Yet, students have long since absorbed the lesson that copying another’s
work is wrong. Still, educators’ presentations
beat the drums of the evils of plagiarism and its horrible consequences. They
are seeking to cure the symptom with fear rather than drilling down for the
hidden discourse.[2]
Most “adult” explanations
are all-too-often simply convenient answers and are not informative of the
deeper discourse which reveals the dimensions of the problem. These transfer blame onto technology or
the altered ethical standards of a digital age rather than considering that
plagiarism itself may be a manifestation of a deeper problem.
There is no question that
barriers concerning intellectual property have been lowered or eradicated
altogether. According to Donald
McCabe of Rutgers, “the number who believed that copying from the Web
constitutes “serious cheating” is declining — to 29 percent on average in
recent surveys from 34 percent earlier in the decade.”[3] Ideas do not have a physical
“footprint.”
That may
explain why a student could justify appropriating something, but this does
little to explain the rationale for the sin.
We should reformulate the question
from “Did the student plagiarize?” to “What made the act of plagiarism an
acceptable option?”
In a word: FEAR. Not terror of something going “bump in the night,” but rather
something more pernicious; the fear that others will discover how wrong one’s
ideas are.
How
is this fear shaped and mobilized?
I believe it is partly because students have been "taught" by
the adults in their lives that their opinions mean little. Consider today’s "helicopter"
parents, always hovering, seeking to protect their children from failure.
Years ago, I would watch 11 year olds on their first campout struggle to set up
a tent. After about 5 minutes of general confusion, the fathers (and a
few mothers) would swoop in to get the tent set up "right."
What
did the youngsters do? The moment that the adults appeared, they
stepped back to let the grown-ups do it. What did they learn?
Adults always knew better. They
also were taught that they, themselves, knew nothing and were going to screw
up.
Next,
in high school, the teacher lectures. And the teacher's opinion is
law. Picture the posture of a normal 15 year old in the classroom...head
down in silent prayer "Please, oh please, don't let her call on me.
I will be revealed to all as the freak/fool I am."
At
college, we find Fox’s history professor who “warned [a student] against
putting his own opinions in his written work.”[4]
Thus, in a HAL-9000 moment, even
“good” students are faced with an intolerable choice…use their own synthesized
opinions which they “know” to be specious or cut-and-paste from an “authority”
made safe through publication…even though they know that to be wrong.
In
the end, we have a generation who believe that their thoughts and opinions are
substandard and fear others discovering that fact. This silent, hidden
discourse is an updated iteration of Fox’s “heartbreaking problem.”
The
crisis is neither that students plagiarize nor that they cannot understand the
opposite.[5]
Rather it is that plagiarism has
become an acceptable choice for far too many. They have concluded that they are
inadequate and in the process have gelded their brains to the point where they find
it nearly impossible to synthesize a creative thought. They fear being exposed
as a fraud...but, because they are striving to meet expectations and to protect
themselves from psychological damage, they commit fraud and theft.
[1] Trip
Gabriel, “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in a Digital Age,” The New York
Times, 2 August 2010, p. A1 accessed from www.nytimes.com
on 8/18/11 and Richard Wrightman Fox, “A Heartbreaking Problem of Staggering
Proportions,” The Journal of American
History, Vol. 90, No 4 (March 2004), p. 1341.
[2] Ibid and Joyce A. Brannan, “Plagiarism: What is it?” Downloaded from
library.uwa.edu/Help/Plagiarism.ppt on 1/25/10. For a Norwegian
perspective, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwbw9KF-ACY
[3] As cited in Gabriel.
[4] Fox, p.
1345.
[5] Ibid, p.
1342.
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