Educating Students about University Plagairism Policies

Price, Margaret.  “Beyond “Gotcha!”: Situating Plagiarism in Policy and Pedagogy.”  College Composition and Communication.  54.1. (Sept. 2002) pp. 88-115.

While Ritter and Valentine address more theoretical notions of student authorship and identity in the context of plagiarism, Price in her “Beyond “Gotcha!”: Situating Plagiarism in Policy and Pedagogy” dissects the plagiarism policies of several universities and discusses ways the policy can be changed and pedagogical practices can be improved in plagiarism and citation education.

Price begins the article by discussing ambiguous and uncertain meanings within the language of plagiarism policies.   She explains that the term “common knowledge” in reference to information that doesn’t need to be cited is undefined and often changes over time (92).  The phrase “your own work”, usually used to stress the importance of originality in student’s texts, is equally ambiguous across cultural and contexts (94). Like Ritter and Valentine, Price also discusses the student’s uncertain identity as an author (93-93), and finally points out the ridiculousness of policies which claim that once students are aware of the policy they cannot claim ignorance of it, even if they are not fully educated in forms of citation relevant to their discipline (102-103).  Price claims that the solution to the problem of the citation policy is to explain both in the University policy, and through the teacher, that citation rules are actually ambiguous and constantly changing (106); and to make sure students in composition classes have extensive practice with citation (107). 

While I understand where Price is coming from in this sense, I also think that it is necessary for schools’ official plagiarism policy to retain the form of a strict, absolute contract. We discussed in class how some students and their parents view the university as a business, and including loopholes in formal university policy that claim that plagiarism isn’t absolute may give truly dishonest students a tool for combating legitimate plagiarism charges.   What is most important, as Price claims in her article, is to have students practice citation methods, not just during one or two class periods, but throughout the semester.  Price describes using worksheets and exercises to help students understand citation methods better, and I think that in my class, in addition to doing worksheets like those described, I might give my students the option of turning in the rough draft of their paper a week before it’s due with examples of their method of citation highlighted (similar to the example Price attributes to Mike Mattison on page 109) to double check their ability to do so.  While College Composition should not necessarily serve other departments, I think that it is important to make sure students do not fail any of their classes, due to lack of information about citations and plagiarism.