Plagiarism

Here is an article on the current state of plagiarism in American Universities:

www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html?hp

It made me wonder about the authenticity of original thought and work; the student editor at the end of the article does argue most students who do plagiarize are lazy, they are not ignorant of their habits, and fully know they are stealing someone else's ideas. My bigger concern, which is saying something, is the method by which some universities and academics tend to excuse this behaviour as if it is some how acceptable and cannot be helped in a growing media and technologically savvy world. It is still stealing; downloading files be they music or movies, television or ebooks, that have not been bought and are not free, is robbing an original producer of authorship, creativity and productivity. I don't know how there can be moral justification for the behaviour.

The story of Helene Hegemanne is a good example. This author never excused her scrapbooking of experiences of the Berlin nightclub scene; she made a pastiche of a variety of other people's experiences and published them. She almost dared the publishing elite of Germany to say she was wrong and they cowed. So, in a way, her act of literary transgression was accepted and justified and no one was willing to say she was stealing--which, in fact, she was. Her act also highlights a growing trend of ignorance in the world; her work had to pass through a number of editors before someone clued in to the fact the work was an act plagiarism. And, I imagine by then it was too late and too much money invested. Either there is so much information available today, it cannot be sifted through and original thought found--which is debatable in light of the numerous programs designed to fight plagiarism, or people really don't read enough and skim through information lightly rather than actually reading and interpreting it. Thus, they get caught really not having read thoroughly.

Marianne Wolfe's book, "Proust and the Squid" comes to mind when one thinks about reading as an act in itself and the way in which the brain changes when reading is done successfully. Technology is generally helpful in the way a card catalogue used to be helpful in libraries; however, it cannot replace in-depth interpretation. It cannot replace the time needed to acquire knowledge through critical thought. What is most scary about this article is the way some academics in the American university system acknowledge this behaviour as acceptable. What kind of teachers are they if they find a student's lack of original thought credible? What does it say about their teaching methods and marking schemes if students are welcome to find and use someone else's original thought? This is an example of "dumbing" down academic expectations.

It is simply wrong to "cut'n'paste" an article from Wikipedia and take credit for it; the fact a student mentioned in the article didn't even bother to learn how to adjust the script for their paper illustrates the intellectual development of some students. Obviously, the person knew they had taken an article from someone else, why he wouldn't feel the responsibility to credit it is curious, almost daring. I would argue someone who needs to plagiarize knows they are not up to the task of independent thought; someone who needs to excuse plagiarism and justify its existence is not a good teacher. I would wonder about the credibility of their independent thought,too.