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Research Project: Plagiarism in the Internet Era

Plagiarism by many accounts is on the rise and not just by students. Many high profile authors (Harvard student and best sellerKaavya Viswanatha), journalists (Jason Blair of the NY Times), politicians (Vladimir Putin's dissertation), and professors have been outed for plagiarism in the past decade. Is it because they are now easier to catch with anti-plagiarism software or because plagiarism has really increased? The internet has drastically changed writers' attitudes about plagiarism, particularly among the generation that has come-of-age with the internet. And there is growing disagreement about what how plagiarism should be defined in the internet era.

Currently, there are software programs to help teachers identify plagiarism such as iThenticate, Eve2 and WCopyFind; however, students have become better at hiding plagiarism thus an arm's race of software and plagiarism techniques is underway.

The open source movement, and stricter copyright laws coupled with increased enforcement and severe punishments have had a significant impact on the psyche of today's writers. The delineation among copyrighted works, public domain, and fair use is less clear than at any time in our nation's history. The traditional model of academic success and structure of academic institutions may be further facilitating this problem; in face, structural deficiencies may exist that prevent them from reducing plagiarism to acceptable levels. By acceptable level, I mean an environment where plagiarism is the aberration.

I believe that this problem manifests in secondary schools and possibly even elementary schools. I doubt that plagiarism enforcement is adequate or if the schools have the resources to confront the problem. By the time the students reach college or pursue careers, they are desensitized to plagiarism or are not able to accurately define what plagiarism is. In essence, plagiarism has become an accepted practice, that is a way of life long before the students enter college.

I began thinking more about this problem after reading Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture, the book for my book report. Lessig discusses how a free culture is built of the collection of humanities work. The growth of culture in all areas is essentially a cumulative process dependent on derivative works. Lessig does not dismiss copyright law just in its current draconian form. Another works I will be reading are Who Owns Academic Work? Battling for Control of Intellectual Property by Corynne McSherry andThe Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism by novelist Jonathan Lethem.

Some critics argue that universities should adopt the Oxbridge system and eliminate grades. It is believed eliminating grades would lessen competition thereby reducing the temptation and need to plagiarise. Supporters of the Oxbridge system, in use at such prestigious British universities as Oxford and Cambridge, contend that this would free up students and faculty alike to produce better scholarly work.

Others have suggested that the era of single student essays, brain-on-paper, is over. Essays will be collaborative and rarely the work of a single author. This is certainly in keeping with a wiki, blog, or message board where a community works on the problem. The social politics of such a situation is difficult to comprehend. Our system of rewards and punishments, the very meritocracy that the educational system stands on will be completely obliterated in this imagined workers state of education.

It seems to be a battle of the extremes. On one side, copyright is sacrosanct. Using another's work is the worst crime in human history. On the other side, the wild wild West where anything that humans conceive is fair game: ideas are community ideas.

The internet makes available a massive amount of research minus the time consuming efforts. Controlling this large body of work may prove to be more effort than it is worth. Is it more important to police intellectual property at great cost or to "decriminalize" or at least change the way we understand plagiarism?

What I wish to study is the link between wikis, internet literacy generally, and students (and professors for that matter) understanding of plagiarism. I want to examine alternative pedagogies that may help to reduce or eliminate plagiarism and examine if the current system only exacerbates plagiarism.