The two main approaches to student plagiarism on many college campuses to prevent plagiarism is to treat it either as morally wrong or as a crime. However, neither can universally successful. Honor codes are created for the approach of plagiarism as a matter of mortality. The codes appeal to encourage the students to do the right thing. Students are asked to confirm that they will practice show a high moral standards as members of an academic community.
However the other approach is enforcing that plagiarism is breaking a rule or a crime. Colleges make sure that faculty and administrators to enforce these laws and regulations. Resources like Turnitin is an online resource which electronically checks a students work to see if they work has been plagiarized or not. Students maybe more threatened if the college trys the approach of breaking the law which means that less students will do it with this particular method. On the other hand students may see this law like many others which college students tend to break for example drinking and smoking.
- According to Blum, why do traditional methods of trying to prevent plagiarism often fail?
Stated in the book Blum believes that the reason why traditional methods fail to prevent plagiarism is due to number of reasons, which are; ‘students have only a limited sense of the meaning of moral quality termed “academic integrity”. By this Susan Blum means that students don’t take moral quality that seriously when it comes to education as they have not be informed how serious this particular offense is.
Another reason is that students are more focused on success and achievement no matter what the student has to do to succeed. Many students don’t take advantage of the classroom learning so if they don’t use the tools and time they have been given then anything process will do which is why plagiarism is still happening today.
3. How have our notions of originality in college writing changed since the 1960’s and 1970’s and why?
Our notions of originality in college writing has changed since the 1960s and 1970s because back then unique, isolated, authentic self-peaked at this time. Also, there was no internet which you could cite or plagiarize so students back then had to study solely by reading books never could you just copy and paste or research anything on the internet.
Students in today’s society have been brought with the internet at a very young age where now all they do is rely on the internet, which takes away the originality in college writing because people who have posted papers or information the internet who may not be even solid sources could be providing false information to students.
4. What solution(s) does Blum offers for dealing with student plagiarism?
In many schools the skill to cite is not enforced the correct way, by this that different teachers have different standards of what is acceptable when citing in a particular way. A solution which Blum offers for dealing with student plagiarism is a solution which treats academic integrity. The skills of citing needs to be a priority skill which needs to be taught the same for every professor in every class. This solution is not trying to stop students from researching information but teaching them if they are going to use other information that they need to show where they have got this information from.
