Wednesday, January 03, 2007

A student claims not to have plagiarized...

New penalties announced for plagiarism...
(Image from Wikipedia)

A Korea University student from my course in Medieval Literature wrote me an email:

I was in class 'The Middle Age's English Literature' actually I can't remember exactly .... Please consider my grade again. I can't understand my grade "F" .... I think I did my best in this class and also i've never been absent even once. Please.

I replied:

Your paper had a lot of problems.

The most serious problem was plagiarism, which is especially characteristic of page 5, which is almost entirely full of plagiarized material. You quote online sources word for word without using any quotation marks. Page 6 looks much the same, almost entirely copied from the internet.

Plagiarism results in an automatic "F" -- as I repeatedly made clear.
The student replied:

No, I didn't copy all the things from website absolutley .... I guess there was my mistake or something in my footnote. Eventhough, the reason make my grade worse but I can't understand "F" .... I sear, I did my best. I worked for many days .... My grade "F" made me be in a very difficult situation. If you don't understand me and even there is a concerete rule. Please consider my grade again. Actually I really really want to avoid "F", and I believe I did better than "F" .... Please proffessor.

I replied:

I have pasted below the material on pages 4 and 5 of your essay that you copied from GradeSaver, a website that belies its name if you simply plagiarize from it, as you did:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

GradeSaver:

The Celts, the people who lived in the British Isles prior to the arrival of the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons, had a strong body of pagan belief, ritual practices, and stories surrounding those beliefs and practices. Many of the characters in these myths were gods and goddesses; many of their ritual practices and beliefs echoed motifs in their myths. As the Middle Ages progressed and Christianity grew more dominant, these motifs and characters were often preserved in the folklore and literature of the British Isles. Arthurian material is particularly notable for its ties to Celtic myth, for many of the characters and events in these stories resemble gods and motifs in the older myths.
...
As the poem progresses, this becomes especially complicated when set against the obvious Christianity in the story.
...
Christian belief and pagan ritual mingle in intricate ways in Gawain.

GradeSaver:

One further interpretation of the shield should be mentioned. Recall again the role that Celtic, pagan mythology plays in the poem. The Pentangle is often seen as a pagan, and not a Christian, symbol, so it is unusual that it should appear on Gawain's shield, with the image of Mary on the reverse side. The two-sided shield, with a pagan symbol on one side and a Christian symbol on the other, can thus represent the dual pagan-Christian nature of the story.

GradeSaver:

There are pagan connotations with the obvious emphasis on fertility. We can even see the pagan, magical green girdle:
...
[This] is not acceptable by chivalric and Christian standards: in keeping it, Gawain goes against his code of honesty, courage, and faith.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

For none of the above did you use quotation marks. The two times that you did acknowledge GradeSaver, you did not cite the webpage that you actually used. Sometimes, you cite other websites entirely even though you took the material from GradeSaver. But for much if not most of the copied material, you cited nothing.

The "F" grade stands.

And thus do things also stand, though I expect that I haven't heard the last of this student yet.

Regardless of what this student may believe about the proper consequences for plagiarism, the standards for scholarship are being raised in Korea. Today's Korea Herald notes in an important article by Jin Dae-woong, "Top school to issue plagiarism guideline," that "Korea University yesterday announced ... [that] it will establish a guideline by next month to tighten up rules regarding plagiarism." The article goes on to provide the following welcome information:

"We are working on a guideline for research ethics including plagiarism," the university said in a statement. "It will be officially released around mid-January after gathering opinions from professors through a public hearing."

The guideline will contain a set of concrete concepts constituting plagiarism, including its definition, span and period, along with specific examples for appropriate application.

"It will be a basic standard to judge various different forms of plagiarism allegations although it will not be an absolute principle," said a professor at the university on condition of anonymity.

The new standard will start to be applied from as early as next semester, he added.

The guideline project originally began in July to cope with growing plagiarism scandals in academic circles, another university official said.

The university has been operating a task force comprising six professors from different academic fields since then to set the basic ethics code, the official said.
I humbly submit that this task force add me to their number. Of course ... the fact that I'll soon no longer be working at Korea University might pose some bureaucratic hurdles, but these could be easily bureaucratically hurdled by rehiring me as a professor of scholarly ethics.

That probably won't happen, but at least the standards are officially rising now, so I can just direct any complaining students to these more rigorous standards.

22 Comments:

At 6:41 AM, Blogger Conservative in Virginia said...

Geez, if they are going to aver that they do not plagiarize, the least they could do is make their case using English at a level equal to their copied material.

 
At 8:34 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Right, one could only hope. But I confess that I don't always edit my emails carefully.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 9:37 AM, Blogger Hathor said...

You have discussed of how one gets ahead in Korean culture, is that why there has been no standards. I wonder does it influence scientist, so that the cloning disgrace of Dr. Hwang would follow.

 
At 9:48 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

I don't know all of the reasons for the widespread plagiarism in Korea, but I have a few thoughts.

1. The intense need to succeed in a country that was so very poor only 50 years ago, and catching up meant 'borrowing' intellectual property without crediting it.

2. The emphasis upon rote memorization as an educational method, which tends to produce individuals who do not think creatively themselves and are used to 'borrowing' the ideas of others.

3. The inevitable lag in professional ethics that results from rapid development -- roughly speaking, Korea underwent in about 50 years what the West underwent in about 300 or more.

There are a few thoughts. I don't know which to give the most weight to.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 10:22 AM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

Personally I feel that Regardless of what this student may believe about the proper consequences for plagiarism, the standards for scholarship are being raised by your stance.

Snerd

 
At 10:27 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Thanks, Snerd, for your kind words, and thanks, too, for stopping by.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 10:29 AM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

I don't know all of the reasons for the widespread plagiarism in Korea, but I have a few thoughts.

4. China's Influence
Intellectual property there is like Arab oil to Americans ... 'free' for the taking. In both cases, Pirating is good and moral business practice

SNerd

 
At 10:34 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Snerd, it's true that Korea, China, and -- earlier -- Japan have all pirated Western technology (and each other's), but they have this in common with other successfully developing states, so I'm not sure how much influnce any one of these countries had on the others (though China has, historically, been an enormous influence upon Korea).

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 10:42 AM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

You simply aren't going to hand out another "F" for plagiarism, no matter how hard I try, are you?

Snerd

 
At 10:44 AM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

My doctorate actually is in history, technically in history of science at U.C. Berkeley, but my thesis is on John's gospel and Gnostic texts.

SG: ... err ... Alchemy!? ...

Snerd

 
At 11:24 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Snerd, I noticed the first one but not the second. No "Fs" for you, sorry -- the reader is (almost) always right.

As for alchemy, I only know a bit about that, but it does have links to both science and Gnosticism.

These days, I mostly work on literary topics.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 11:33 AM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

I was curious about the relationship of a doctorate in history of science and a thesis on John's gospel and Gnostic texts.

Snerd

 
At 11:41 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Snerd, the reality is even stranger. At Berkeley, one can write a doctorate on any topic that one might wish after passing one's oral exams -- if one can find an advisor.

My interests changed after my orals, so I took advantage of the system and pursued those other interests.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 1:53 PM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

What was/were your particular areas of interest in science?

Snerd

 
At 2:26 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

I was interested in 19th-century biology but also in the history of science generally.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 3:38 PM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

A few years back I got interested in the scientific 'perspective'- How science works (Kuhn, Popper, Needham, etc.) and the Scientific Revolution in particular. I was fascinated by what I imagined it would have been like coming up against some of this stuff for the first time, using science to make new sense of the world, etc.

Snerd

 
At 4:11 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Yes, it is fascinating, but I discovered my limits pretty quickly -- math not being my forte -- which partly explains why my interests grew in other directions. But I still like it and pay attention to the history of science and technology in my study of history.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 12:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I simply do not understand why anyone would so blatantly plagiarize when it’s so easy to a) quote/cite, b) blockquote/cite, or c) paraphrase and reference.

But then again, I love the footnotes. The bibliography from my masters project was over 30 pages.

 
At 1:42 AM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

Rich! I think that is a 'note worthy' example of putting the 'best foot' forward ... or minimally an example of having 'mastered' the process*

Snerd
*comments by Snerd

 
At 2:11 AM, Blogger Snerd Gronk said...

Horace, Scope in Science studies is not only limited by math, but also lack of any background in, chem, physics, biology, etc., I discovered.

My primary interest is the cognitive and philosophical aspects of science ... how thinking 'through' that paradigm(s) structures (and therefore constructs) the world a certain way, the hermeneutics of the western extravert mind, as it were.

Also, science is commonly thought to prove things, to positivistically establish the veracity of the philosophic. But science itself is nothing, if not also a philosophical approach and like all methods employed to construct meaning and understanding, usually remains under-examined, or axiomatically subliminal ... ahhhh ... I can prove it!

Snerd

 
At 6:27 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Richardson, I don't understand it either, for one can always footnote a quote or a paraphrase (as you note), but our Western education system is different from the Korean one, and the students often aren't taught these things ... until they reach my classes.

Then, they learn...

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 6:29 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Snerd, I was also limited by those other things that you mention.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 

Post a Comment

<< Home