Mark R. Hatlie

Good Scholarship

There is a lot of discussion about plagiarism around, but not a lot about what consitutes good scholarship.

For that purpose, I mention here an article that someone pointed out to me about a year ago: A Heartbreaking Problem of Staggering Proportions by Richard Wightman Fox, Journal of American History, March, 2004. This article has been important for me because it reminds me to look for the forest, so to speak, and not get all up-tight about the trees when evaluating student scholarship. The main point, I guess, is that it is not just about policing quotes and citations (although that remains necessary). It is about what good scholarship is, not just what it isn't. And a lot of good scholarship is about borrowing. Here are some quotes or almost-quotes from the article:

Historical writing is not the absence of plagiarism, but the presence of borrowing from, debating with, giving credit to other scholars, living and dead.
We feed on each other's brilliance. Good thoughts come from listening to smart people.
The reader doesn't necessarily want your opinion, but does want your interpretation. Give interpretations based on evidence and argument. "Use primary and secondary sources to forge arguments of your own."
Borrow ideas and data from other scholars, but then, "wrangle with them to infuse them with new passion and meaning."

So much of the discussion in adademia about Wikipedia and citations and "turnitin.com", including my discussion below, is negative, I find Fox's emphasis on what scholarship is to be quite refreshing.

Standard Policy on Plagiarism

I will use standard university procedures if plagiarized material is submitted to me. Students often do not realize how easy it is, even for a first-time instructor, which I no longer am, to detect plagiarized work with the naked eye. What is worse, they do not sense that the same technology they used to download a research paper can be used to find that paper again. To supplement common sense and experience, I use turnitin.com for every paper submitted to me. The results are sometimes embarrassing both for me and for the student.

This is not intended to intimidate or threaten any student. I get no joy out of suspected dishonesty. Indeed, the technology of detecting plagiarism has several positive effects:

It reduces the time required to detect it, making it seem less pervasive. It used to consume hours of time and bring me to a boil. Now, I am less concerned.
It encourages honesty.
And therefore it provides for greater trust between instructor and student. Since you know I am going to check, and I know I will check or have checked, at no inconvenience, we can both worry about our real jobs: learning.

See what a plagiarized paper looks like after the technology is done with it. This plagiarized paper, shown in the link as it looks embedded within the turnitin.com webpage, was submitted to me recently. Notice that the student tried to cover his/her tracks by splicing together two sources. The technology has found every sentence – not only on the WWW, but also in a databank of research papers submitted to another university. This took me about two minutes to run. Earlier, I used to search for sections of suspicious papers using Google. That got similar results, but took me hours and provided access to fewer databanks.

The student also went out of his/her way by including print sources for his bibliography. This was supposed to make the paper look more authentic. Other students have even invented sources or, in desperation, found sources on the web and then cited them – not realizing that the titles they were citing were actually sources about totally different topics.

Some students don’t download a paper or even splice together two papers. They go full court press and splice together four, five or six different sources, but don’t write a single sentence on their own. If such a student would simply put the information into his or her own words, and properly cite the sources, it would be a good paper – even if it doesn’t contain one gram of original thought.

If you have found several sources of relevant information, you’ve already taken the first step! So please. Take that time, creativity and energy and invest it in an honest paper.