{"id":2483,"date":"2019-05-17T18:12:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T18:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/?p=2483"},"modified":"2019-05-17T18:12:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T18:12:53","slug":"20-things-to-do-before-accusing-a-student-of-plagiarism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/20-things-to-do-before-accusing-a-student-of-plagiarism\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Things to Do Before Accusing a Student of Plagiarism"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is not a traditional blog posting for this site. What happened is that I ran into writer and KPU<\/a> Applied Communications instructor Arley McNeney on Twitter<\/a> who posted a rapid -fire dozen tweets on addressing plagiarism, TurnItIn, and sound teaching practice. This struck a deep chord in me – I really needed to read this. It is a reminder of how important empathy and compassion are, not just for teaching but being human. I asked if I could post the tweets here and she said yes, with the caveat that some of the solutions are particular to her campus, but I think you will get it – the focus is on student support.<\/p>\n

I empathize with faculty who feel like they don’t have the tools to address plagiarism, but Turnitin isn’t the answer. Here are some things you can do instead.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Trust and respect students. See them as partners in learning.<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Book a session with our wonderful librarians.<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. When a student plagiarizes, invite them for a conversation. Stress they’re not in trouble. Listen. Every time I have had one of these conversations, I have left with more respect for the student than when they walked into my office. Have the student revise the paper.<\/em><\/li>\n
  4. Direct students to The Learning Centre or book a consultation with a learning strategist yourself. I am so impressed by the work that our colleagues at the The Learning Centre do. http:\/\/www.<\/span>kpu.ca\/learningcentres<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/li>\n
  5. Trust students.<\/em><\/li>\n
  6. Ask your students how they learned to cite. Create a bridge between the citation practices they learned and what you want them to do.<\/em><\/li>\n
  7. Take an Interculturisation Workshop.<\/em><\/li>\n
  8. Lesley McCannell and others have developed a session on an intercultural approach to citation……She will come to your department meeting!<\/em><\/li>\n
  9. Trust students.<\/em><\/li>\n
  10. Involve students in creating assignments and rubrics. Are they valueing what you value in this assignment? Do they know what role sources play in the assignment?<\/em><\/li>\n
  11. Use the skills assessment developed by Lesley McCannell, @<\/s>Pipkpu<\/b><\/a> , Christina Page and others to find out what your students know about citation at the beginning of the semester.<\/em><\/li>\n
  12. Talk to students. Get to know them. You will be surprised by the challenges they are facing.<\/em><\/li>\n
  13. Trust students.<\/em><\/li>\n
  14. Frame citation as an act of generosity. Someone gave us the gift of their knowledge or their words and we’re showing respect by crediting them. I forget where I learned this from (see? I am not perfect at citation and i teach it!) but it’s effective.<\/em><\/li>\n
  15. Create assignments that are non-disposable and that draw on your students’ own experience.<\/em><\/li>\n
  16. Have students practice paraphrasing and synthesis by having them write a scene where their sources are having dinner together. (I think this is a Peter Elbow exercise).<\/em><\/li>\n
  17. Have students practice paraphrasing by having them read a draft of a peer’s assignment then explain the main point in less than 2 sentences.<\/em><\/li>\n
  18. Have students bring in a draft and highlight quotes in one colour, paraphrasing in another and their own ideas in a third. This helps them identify places where they forgot to cite and also lets them see when they need to insert their own voice into the piece.<\/em><\/li>\n
  19. Discuss how citation happens in your industry and why. When is it appropriate to use a colleague’s work? Focus on the decisions communicators make in the workplace. Not just how to cite by why.<\/em><\/li>\n
  20. Trust students. Trust students. Trust students. Resist edtech. Trust students. How do you help your students learn citation?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Even the solutions that are specific to her campus describe a campus with a high degree of student support. It suggests a great model for student support. I, of course, would not dare attempt to speak for Arley, but what I hear in the phrase “Resist edtech” is that technology is not a substitute for teaching. I have written elsewhere about my feelings about TurnItIn<\/a> on this blog, as well as trying to get faculty away from concerns about cheating and back to teaching academic integrity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    A special thanks again to Arley McNeney: the click-baity title is mine, everything else worth reading is hers. I would also be interested in your thoughts on this – technology can facilitate learning but it can also create barriers and false solutions (sometimes to problems that are created by tech in the first place!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is not a traditional blog posting for this site. What happened is that I ran into writer and KPU Applied Communications instructor Arley McNeney on Twitter who posted a rapid -fire dozen tweets on addressing plagiarism, TurnItIn, and sound … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-integrity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}