Response to Plagiarism Discussion

Today in class we discussed the topic of "plagiarism" and how we can help assist students in avoiding plagiarism in their writing. The sheet that we graded for homework consisted of a variety of paragraphs that confronted the problem of plagiarism. Our job was to detect what was wrong with each paragraph and then rate the severity of plagiarism on a -4 to +4 scale. I found that grading these paragraphs was difficult because the paragraphs were not shown in a full paper. Instead, we had to interpret the grade we gave each paragraph based on a small snippet of what the paper as a whole may have been about . The fact that there was no completely wrong or right answer is what made this exercise hard, because at times it seemed as though their could be multiple gradings for each text. Despite its subjectivity, I found this exercise helpful in differentiating between how to use quotations and references correctly and how to use them incorrectly. Sometimes when we have already mastered how to executive a skill, we forget how to explain how we mastered this skill. Although we can think that we know how to use quotations and sources correctly, we don't really understand how to use them until we can explain to someone who does not know how to use sources, how to do so. By seeing and correcting examples of incorrect writing, I learned how to truly understand what plagiarism is and all the different forms it can take. Previously, I had thought that plagiarism would be something to easily identify and that once I saw it, I would know immediately that what was being said was plagiarized. However, this exercise taught me that sometimes fallible citing is difficult to detect and judge. So I leave this post asking the question, how can we prepare students for all of these different forms of plagiarism that at times seem subjective and controversial? And what should the consequences be for "accidental" plagiarism?