Blog Post #6

My topic for our research project is going to be plagiarism (I have yet to come up with a more concentrated title for it). I am currently taking a writing studies course, and read an article on plagiarism and it's role in writing studies that really grabbed my interest. In the article, I was introduced to several new ideas as to why plagiarism is so prevalent in a large number of student's work. The only thing was, that the article didn't have much information on the students perspective when it came to committed acts of plagiarism (both unintentionally and intentionally).


What I'm planning to make my central focus for this is, what student's think is the underlying reason for unintentional plagiarism.. I already know (or at least I assume) that many students would sum it up to laziness, and the convenience of the internet. However, I plan to formulate some questions to really see if students feel they need to use the internet and other sources as a crutch to help them get through an assignment. Maybe they lack a brain-storming technique that works for them or that genre of writing, or maybe the assignments given lack encouragement to really elaborate on the subject matter, leaving students stuck.

So far, I plan to interview a handful of college students (non Kean University students, in case they somehow violate the school's plagiarism guidelines) Some of the questions I've come up with are:

• How would you define plagiarism?
• Do you use the internet as a crutch to help you find ideas, or elaborate on current ideas when writing a paper?
• If so, do you feel you have to cite where you got that idea from, even if you aren't quoting something?
• If not, do you feel your assignments are set up in a way that makes plagiarism too difficult or just plain unnecessary?
• Do you feel you are expected to already have the skills for a successful writing process?
• Do you find yourself not giving credit to sites that some professors find less credible such as wiki, cliffnotes, sparknotes, etc?
• Besides being lazy, what reasons would you give for the rise in plagiarism?

 I was also thinking of incorporating some questions about their writing process, to see if they make drafts or even if they take it back to grade school and use webs. "How do you build on your ideas?" etc. But I'm not sure if this would run me off track a bit, or if this sort of back information would help my focus.

The questions I came up with are still subject to change. I may add some or just delete some completely. In the end, I really just want to learn what students feel are the reasons they refer to  websites more so DURING the writing process. Not just using the internet and sites because they are required to have sources to back up claims, but for the extra stuff, the stuff that no one asked them to use the internet for. I haven't decided if I want to keep this within English majors, or if I want to open it up to several majors and their unique forms of writing. On the practical side of things, I know a lot more people from different majors other than English that don't attend Kean. Most of the English majors I know are all my peers here at the university. I'm not too sure which way would be better in collecting information yet.