In high school, no one cared. Just don't make your paper reflect another authors views perfectly, and don't copy your neighbor's word for word. That's all they asked of me and who am I to disagree? They made the standards quite low, don't get me wrong -- if it was plagiarized, you would get caught -- but to be considered plagiarism you had to be pretty exact in your wording.
Now after a summer semester on campus and beginning my freshman year, I see how much higher the stakes are. Quotes have to be perfect, paraphrasing has to be attributed constantly and most importantly, your works cited has to be impeccable. My only concern is not that I might plagiarize but that I won't cite it correctly and get busted all the same.
As a freshman, I understand there is some leeway during the drafting portion of the writing process but as soon as a final copy is handed in, the game is on. Plagiarism can come from so many different places it seems hard to track, but my senior year English teacher showed all of us how quickly a computer program can spot if something has been copied are even tell you how severe of an infringement it is. I know that my professors have similar software and I fear that it will not understand common phrases and assume they are plagiarized.
This fear is probably unfounded and the programs are designed to not detect common words or phrases, but all the same, I don't want to get kicked out of college! I like it here!
I do enjoy the higher stakes though, it keeps everyone on their game and helps push the honor code. This is something I can live with, I don't want to ever have to worry about someone stealing my ideas, or my papers.
Thank you for reading
Elliot
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You will find a few faculty who do not read your work with care. Others will, and they want to know more about your topic. This is one reason they would check a source, that joy of learning more about a topic of interest.
ReplyDeleteOthers check just to make sure you didn't "get away with anything" but either ways, accuracy counts. We faculty have a way of thinking "sleep is for babies," to quote a friend of mine. We'll read student work late into the night.
High school teachers do that, too, but they have so many students that personal responses are very difficult.