Plagiarism Presentation

1. Bloch, J. (2001). Plagiarism and the ESL students: From printed to electronic texts. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), Linking Literacies: Perspectives on L2 Reading-Writing Connections (pp. 209-228). Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

 The notion of intellectual property and authorship (p. 210)
• Printed forms vs. electronic forms
• Cultural or non-cultural

 Any cross-cultural comparison runs the danger of dichotomizing the two cultures into polar opposites, presenting one culture as the opposite of the other (p. 213)
• Social factors
• The notion of intellectual authorship
• The changing definition of plagiarism

 Plagiarism from students’ perspectives

 Teaching about plagiarism
• Printed forms – Explicitly teach the norms of plagiarism (p. 220)
• Electronic texts – The distinction between what is private and what is public, the basis for determining whether something has been plagiarized, is even less clear in the electronic medium than in the medium of print (p. 212)

2. Pecorari, D. Plagiarism and the ESL students: From printed to electronic texts. In D. Belcher & A. Hirvela (Eds.), Linking Literacies: Perspectives on L2 Reading-Writing Connections (pp. 229-245). Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

 The concept of plagiarism is fully embedded within a social, political, and cultural matrix that cannot be meaningfully separated from its interpretation (229)
 Plagiarism is far from a clearly defined construct (p. 233)
 There is not as yet scholarly consensus as to whether electronic sources should or should not be treated as distinct from more traditional media for the purposes of debate about intellectual property (p. 234)
 From Pecorari’s study, the reaction toward plagiarism from university is that “punishment is the norm” (p. 243)
 Because of the conventions for citation are not universal, both students and their teachers need policies that permit new practices to be absorbed gradually, like all other new skills, and that allow students a margin of error as they try to hit a new target. Unfortunately, the majority of institutional responses to plagiarism surveyed here deny students that support (p. 244)

Class Discussion
Group 1
1. How do you define plagiarism? Is your definition different from your classmates? How (social, political, cultural factors)?
2. As a literacy educator, how do you avoid plagiarism in your students’ writing?
3. Bloch pointed out that “lacking formal knowledge of the rules governing the use of intellectual property, these students may produce texts that generate charges of plagiarism when there in fact was no actual intent to steal or cheat” (p. 221). Do you agree with his statement? Why?

Group 2
4. Should the importance of electronic texts weigh the same as printed texts? Please explain why.
5. How do you describe plagiarism?
6. Pecorari posed a question in her article, “is plagiarism, then, a defect in the product or in the process”? (p. 234) How would answer this question? Please explain why.

Group 3
7. What should teachers do when plagiarism occurs in a writing class consisting of English-speaking and non-English speaking writers? Should they be treated differently? Please explain why.
8. When was your first time to be introduced to the concept of plagiarism? Where and how did you get informed? Did your writing style change after that?
9. How do you define intellectual authorship? How is your definition different from other classmates?