undermine those goals, and much of the scholarship in the field of composition and rhetoric on plagiarism reveals the rescue mission that teacher-scholars on all sides of the issue have undertaken.
Likewise, the looming issues of plagiarism influence the relationships between teachers and students as they impact the environment of the composition classroom. Expanded honor codes, plagiarism policies on syllabi, and the use of PDSs can create an “atmosphere of mistrust” that Sean Zwagerman argues “over time, settles in as normal and invisible, [where] statistical justification for acts of vigilance become unnecessary” (678). If composition instructors take for granted that students will cheat if given the chance, the fundamental tenets of composition pedagogy are compromised. At risk is that the atmosphere of the composition classroom can become infected with the fear of getting caught cheating (or wrongly being accused), as well as teachers’ dread of the tiresome and upsetting process of catching and prosecuting cheaters. The normalization of this atmosphere cannot leave the composition classroom unaffected.
As for plagiarism’s marketability, the mere presence of such a large volume of publications—many of them books designed for classroom use—indicates that there is money to be made off of plagiarism, or off of attempts to prevent it. This question of “marketing” and “management” ideologies in a traditionally more theoretical academic environment can be problematic. How can students explore the more abstract complexities of authorship, ethos, and writerly voice under these conditions? Is the “business” of plagiarism and the politics of its construction interfering with pedagogy and inquiry?
One of the problems with all of the discussion around plagiarism is that it assumes that the term “plagiarism” is easily defined and obvious to all. We hope this book will illustrate how this belief is far from true, and how thinking through the various conceptions of “plagiarism” is critical in understanding its origins, manifestations, and prevention. A second and related problem is that classroom and institutional discussions and policies about plagiarism often conflate intentional and unintentional plagiarism. One strain of the books written about plagiarism—like Lathrop and Foss’s Guiding Students from Cheating and Plagiarism to Honesty and Integrity: Strategies for Change—assumes that the issue is a question of cheating versus being honest—again, an issue only about students’ ethics. A second strain, one more typically directed at students, views plagiarism as a kind of trap for unwary students; Linda Stern’s What Every Student Should Know About Avoiding Plagiarism is just one example of a number of books that refer specifically to “avoiding” plagiarism, as if it’s lurking out there, waiting to ensnare you if you’re not careful. These two strains reveal a broad spectrum of plagiarism definition that calls students’ agency into question: Plagiarism can be about the questionable values that students possess, and it can be about their ignorance altogether.
Both sides of the spectrum, of course, have some merit to them. Some students will cheat, but we see no reason to assume most students are cheaters. Many students lack the necessary knowledge about documentation, of course, and students often plagiarize without intending to; however, the set of conventions governing academic writing is complex and sometimes confusing. Learning to navigate those conventions successfully is a long, arduous process, and not something one does by learning a simple list of rules; understanding plagiarism is more than just learning how to cite properly—and the stakes are high. Academic institutions in the United States, and elsewhere, place a high value on particular notions of creativity, originality, and authorship. Adherence to that value constitutes, in the academy’s view, integrity, but those notions of creativity, originality, and authorship are hardly universal. They vary among cultures—and not just cultures according to nationality, race, or ethnicity but also social class, region, religion, and other social groups to which people belong. Students entering academia bring with them a variety of cultural values that sometimes differ from the values of academic institutions. As new members of the academic community, students are in the process of learning a new set of values, and of negotiating between those values and the values they have brought with them. This socialization plays a significant role in students’ literacy learning, and it is a necessary—but unexamined—part of the conversation that should take place between students and teachers about plagiarism.
Plagiarizing, of course, regardless of intention, is not a problem isolated to composition studies, but because teaching academic writing conventions has historically been perceived as the purview of English departments generally and first-year composition teachers specifically, this issue has been the subject matter of many scholarly articles and books within that discipline. Because plagiarism, as opposed to “mere” cheating on an exam, generally involves passing off someone else’s text as one’s own, English and Writing departments (and the first-year writing divisions specifically) in higher education have been relied upon to teach students about plagiarism—its definitions, how to avoid it, and the repercussions of it. While course policies with broad statements about plagiarism have expanded syllabi, and classroom lessons incorporate the subject, there is no quick fix that will universally solve the problem of plagiarism. Teachers of writing and scholars in composition studies have begun to recognize and discuss the complexity of the issues surrounding plagiarism in a third strain of books, such as Rebecca Moore Howard and Amy Robillard’s Pluralizing Plagiarism: Identities, Contexts, Pedagogies. Yet, such books are written by scholars for other scholars. Intentionally or unintentionally, they tend to exclude students from the conversation about student writing. Books written for students, however, continue to emphasize simplistic definitions of plagiarism, to exhort students to “do their own work,” and to focus on “cheating” or “avoiding” plagiarism.
That’s where this book comes in. As editors of this volume, we reject from the outset the notion that students are fundamentally cheaters. As both teachers of writing and composition scholars, we understand that students plagiarize—intentionally and unintentionally—for a wide variety of reasons. In fact, we are uneasy even with the simple distinction between intentional and unintentional plagiarism because the issue itself is so fraught with philosophical, political, and cultural elements that need to be taken into account before we can even begin to judge an act as “on purpose” or “by mistake.” We likewise have rejected simplistic definitions and all-purpose guides for avoiding plagiarism. Because we are more interested in teaching students than in catching cheaters, we believe students and teachers together need to discuss the very notion of plagiarism, in a variety of cultural contexts. In other words, we want to invite students into the academic conversation about plagiarism. Only in this way, can we achieve true education and help students improve as writers.
We assume, then, that most of you reading this book are undergraduate students (probably in an advanced writing course), or graduate students (who may or may not be new teachers yourselves), or teachers of those courses and/or graduate students. We have encouraged the authors collected here to address both students and teachers as their primary audience, but their essays are specifically, and intentionally, academic. As a student, then, you are likely to encounter concepts with which you are familiar, but in new and more complex ways, as well as concepts with which you are less familiar. This is, as we view it, the nature of higher education. Some of the essays here will explore differing perceptions of plagiarism—between students and teachers, between writing and music, between different cultures. Some will draw connections or distinctions between popular culture—artists like Kanye West and shows like South Park—and academic culture. Others still are based on more traditional forms of academic research. None of them offers The Answer. Instead, our hope is that you—students and teachers—will engage in deep, serious discussion about the complexity of “plagiarism” and the variety of issues it raises.
You will also find that this collection is enriched with some selections from interdisciplinary studies, literature, and technical communication scholars as well as a middle school teacher. The border of composition studies touches and interacts with writing practices in every discipline, certainly. Writing-across-the-curriculum and writing-in-the-disciplines initiatives, for example, are built through interdisciplinary collaborations and held in esteem by teachers across campuses. Literature and technical communication, though, are connected to composition even more closely
