Thoughts on Student Plagiarism

Our library recently put out an instructional video on the do's and don't's surrounding the writing of term papers, with special focus on accurate citation and avoiding plagiarism.

It's a good video, very informative, etc, and yes, I hope students get the lecture early on, from conscientious High School English teachers before they ever get to the university.

But I remember being a student once and I can understand the frustration and temptation of plagiarism. Because until one has read widely enough, and thought deeply enough to have one's own thoughts and ideas (however illusory this may actually be), and the confidence to speak one's mind...it's hard to go out on a limb and take a stand...even if you find supporting evidence you can cite from other authors, it's intimidating...for the longest time you feel more like an amateurish editor than a real creative writer...most of your original sentences seem like mere filler in between significant QUOTES that are much more eloquent than anything you could ever come up with on your own. The whole exercise in the beginning feels a little like glorified cheer leading..."yeah, what he said!!".

It takes a long, painful process to find your own voice, to develop critical faculties, etc, and I think many students engage in sporadic plagiarism as a cover for their own underdeveloped and developing critical faculties...they don't want it to be so obvious they are merely stringing together ideas of other people with no original thought of their own to contribute. Such neophyte students are much more susceptible to "argument from authority" than an adult writer who has found his own voice. It takes a long time to learn to read critically, to see not only how a certain writer bolsters one's own position, but how one need not accept an ally's thesis in toto if it clashes with one's own tentative conclusions based on other evidence already evaluated.

It is a necessary skill to learn not only for the academic world, but the workaday world as well. I'm a little embarrassed by the high esteem my insurance colleagues held for me because of my academically refined writing style...I could be clear, concise, diplomatic, and to the point. My remaining vice is a tendency to long-windedness, if I don't watch myself. I am easily derailed by tangents and my Germanic language training makes me apt to ape extreme German academic grammatical style, with imbedded clauses, perfectly natural in German, but requiring multiple parentheses in English.

My heart does go out to all students trying to find their voice in the academic setting. You will find it, and try not to be ashamed how much you may rely on the quotes of others at first. Your own voice will out, eventually.