So, as you all know, Justin and I don't take very many things seriously. School is one of those things. Sure, we're working hard to complete our degrees, but... uh, wait, that's not really true either. We do what we need to do to get by. Sometimes we like to have a little fun while we're at it. It keeps it more interesting.
One of the fascinating classes Justin and I are attending together is called "Communication Theory." To be honest, I'm still not sure what it's really all about. Basically, we talk about how people communicate and why. We just turned in our first paper a little while back. The topic was on plagiarism. Justin and I have gotten the distinct feeling that DSC has had some issues with mass plagiarism among students in the past. Here is the paper explanation from the syllabus:
Mzik (2009) writes, "Any time we talk about research or theories we have to explore the idea of plagiarism. For this paper, I want you to do just that, really explore what it means to plagiarize. So, start with our policy here at Dixie, and in your own words, tell me what it says and what it means to you. Then, I want you to go some research on plagiarism (yes, that means you have to have citations!). I want you to find two sources that talk about plagiarism. This paper needs to be at least 3 pages (900 words) or longer, typed, double spaced, proofread, and handed in on time with two references cited APA style. There is no right answer here, but this is to help you understand what it is and what the consequences of academic honesty are when writing" (pg. 6).
I know! It sounds like such an interesting assignment! I can just imagine our professor reading paper after paper about naughty plagiarizers, such fun! Thirty students spewing the regurgitated evils of stealing and cheating and citing inappropriately. Gag me.
The next class after we turned in our papers, our professor had read through the papers. She didn't hand them back but she informed us that everyone but two people had plagiarized their plagiarism papers. I assumed that she meant citing errors. No one would blatantly plagiarize in a paper like that. I also assumed that Justin and I probably made some citing errors, too. I mean, it took me a long time to try and figure out APA style, and I wasn't 100% sure about it. Our professor promised she would go easy because it was the first paper. A couple class periods later, our professor handed our papers back. Everyone perused their mistakes, and that's when Justin and I realized that we were the two that hadn't plagiarized. All our citing was completely correct. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Justin and I decided to argue FOR plagiarism. Here are our papers if you want to read them:
Jesse's Paper
Justin's Paper
So, the two people who were arguing that plagiarism is a-ok are the only two people who didn't plagiarize on our papers. The irony is delicious, isn't it? So, we get our papers back and in way of discussion, our professor says this: "There are people in this class who think it's perfectly okay to plagiarize off of your work. What do you think about that?" Basically, for the entire class, we sat back, listening to everyone say how horrifying this thought was. One guy said he believes that "Plagiarizing on a paper is one step away from cheating on a test, which is one step away from cheating on your taxes, which is one step away from cheating on your spouse." In that case, I guess we better watch each other closely. Our professor prodded the conversation on, trying in vain to get us to jump to plagiarism's defense. I have never been in a college classroom and had such an obvious one-sided debate happening for such a long time. These people were feeding off of each other, bolstering each other up in their amazing points. And the teacher kept egging it on, hoping to stifle any dissension in the ranks.
Justin and I could tell that our approach to this paper had greatly offended and angered our professor, and we knew she wanted to eat us alive with debate. It was fantastic, hilarious, mindboggling. We felt pretty powerful, to be honest. We didn't participate in the discussion, we didn't really feel it was necessary.
We took a test in that class a few days later. The last question on the test was, "True or False. Sometimes it is okay to plagiarize." Passive-aggressive much?
References
Mzik, Kellie. (2009). "COMM 1050 Introduction to Communication Theory Fall 2009 MWF 11 AM; Hazy 204."
5 comments:
That is so funny what your teacher was trying to do. Hilarious. I did like your papers. I think you should have cited each others paper. That would have been funny. I had an assignment where I had to pretend to be the teacher and I had to explain to a student why plagiarism was bad. I was going to plagiarize the whole paper cuz I thought it would be funny. I didn't though cuz, well, I didn't want to get kicked out. I think the whole properly citing sources is stupid. Why can't we just use quotes and be done with it? Stupid. We all plagiarize all the time anyways when we talk. The next time I quote a line from a movie I'll be sure to properly cite it.
The next time I plagiarize I will be sure to continue as nothing happened.
hahaha. i think it's funny that you correctly cited your quote. and that you and justin were the only ones who said it was ok to plaigarize and you didn't, but everyone else did plaigarize and they said it was wrong! hahaha.
Along the lines of Justin's paper, I actually think many school situations encourage plagiarism. If you've ever spent time in an elementary age class, especially during art time, you probably know what I mean. The teacher hands out all the necessary pieces- photocopied pictures of the same thing, scissors, crayons, etc., and then takes the whole class through the project one step at a time, making sure they all do the same thing. Cut here, color this, glue these pieces together like this, and so on. The result is a line of projects all pretty much the same.
Its like a field trip I did with my kids earlier this week, after time in the exhibit they took everyone into an art room to do a project. The "number one, most important rule was to be creative and have fun," which was promptly followed by limitations- don't touch anything yet (tantalizing piles of legoes in the middles of the tables), listen to all instructions, first we'll draw a picture, then get it passed of with me, then you can do it. As if kids need instructions to be creative or have fun with legoes.
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