My New Favorite Word: Attribution

A few months ago, I collaborated with Dr. Woodworth on some ideas for a five-week, intense Comp I course.  During our conversations, we discussed the idea of the language we use when we talked about research (you can read about it here). 

Rather than focusing on the positive, we tend to harp on plagiarism.  Rather than teach students the process, we penalize them when they mess up.

So when it came time for me to choose a Writing Spaces essay to read and respond to, I decided to work with Janice R. Walker’s “Everything Changes, or Why MLA Isn’t (Always) Right.”

This is actually one chapter I haven’t read (surprise, surprise), so I thought it was time to finally read my way through it.

She doesn’t shy away from the fact that academic research writing can be confusing — students learn different methods, or worse, bad methods.  And we force them to learn, but we don’t usually begin with explaining why it’s important.

Walker explains the mess of trying to cite sources — variations required in disciplines, changes in MLA, inventions of new technology, and minor formatting variations.

When we look over all of this, is it any wonder students struggle with correct attribution?  We’ve given them too many rules and not enough reasons.

So what are the reasons?  Walker offers “The Logic of Citation” (pgs. 263-265):

1. Principle of Access:  We want readers to have access to the sources we use.
2. Principle of Intellectual Property: We want to give proper credit to other people’s ideas and work.
3. Principle of Economy: We want to give citations that provide all of the necessary information in the smallest package possible.
4. Principle of Standardization: We want to give readers a standardized format for a particular discipline because it makes it easier to locate and understand.
5. Principle of Transperancy: We want to include citations that do not intrude upon the flow of the text.

She isn’t re-inventing the wheel, nothing here is different or new — but it is helpful.  If students and teachers take the approach of REASONS for attribution rather than RULES, students will understand why attribution (and plagarism and the like) are so important.

I’m also loving that she offers five reasons (*snicker*).

Shades of Grey: Plagiarism

I’ve taught writing classes for a few years now.  And whenever it gets to talking “plagiarism” and “citing” and “research” and whatever other terminology, I’ve learned that I need a while to teach it.  In fact, I will likely start talking about these ideas and have the students work on different aspects during the whole semester.

I’ve learned that teaching research writing requires time, devotion, continued practice, and more time.  I’ve started seeing Turnitin.com as a teaching tool, not a punishment device akin to something from a torture chamber.  And I’ve adopted the perspective that if you’re going to assign a research paper, you better be prepared to teach research methods (no matter what discipline you’re in).  And you’d better be prepared for some questions.

Jonathon Lethem’s “The Ecstacy of Influence: A Plagiarism” showcases exactly the kind of conflicting messages that we’re passing along to students, and it’s these conflicting messages that lead to confusion and frustration.  How is it they can get away with copy/pasting assignments in one class and make As, but they get to another and they fail for it?  And why do we bash plagiarism when they do it, but not when Shakespeare did it?

I think much of the issue is consistency – we aren’t all using the same vocabulary, ideas, and training.  And students aren’t transferring their knowledge between classes: what is learned in English class stays in English class.  We aren’t giving students the incentive to devote the time to thinking, gathering, synthesizing, and presenting.  I just read a conversation between an adjunct instructor and someone who writes papers for money.  And I found I had a lot in agreement with the one who is making the money.

And just last week, Dr. Woodworth and I had a breakthrough of ideas (thanks to collaboration, no less) that perhaps some of the issue is in the language we use.  Instead of focusing on the positive aspects of research (giving someone credit for their ideas), we focus on the negative (plagiarism is stealing, cheating will fail you).  Plagiarism carries such steep penalties (and is so easily avoidable), and in the world of English, I don’t know of a much dirtier word — even I feel like I should wash out my mouth when I say it.

We’re about to start teaching a five week Comp I course (prayers, good karma, positive energies welcome), and she will be gone for a week that I need to teach.  During that week, the students and I are going to focus on research methods, and as she and I discussed plans for the week, we mulled over the idea of focusing on ATTRIBUTION, rather than that dirty “P” word.

Instead of emphasizing the penalties, we’re going to focus on the “why” we give people credit and the “why” we want to give them credit.  There will still be elements of research methods (citations, direct quoting, paraphrasing), but within a different framework.

So while the contradictions still exist and we still praise our Shakespeare while failing our plagiarized student papers, perhaps this group of students will be better equipped to deal with the necessities of research and attribution.  Perhaps.