I am from Argentina and my first language is Spanish. Even though I studied English as a second language for 7 years, my lack of vocabulary has been 'blocking' me since I got to the United States a month ago. When read articles, I understand what they are saying and yet I can't explaining using my own word because of this blocking so I'm forced to use most of the original writer's words. I think this is one of the many causes for plagiarism to be found.
In his article "ESL Student Plagiarism: Ignorance of the Rules or Authorial Identity Problem?," Robert Lankamp explains that the principal causes for students plagiarism are ignorance of the conventions , "absence of one's own voice to express the ideas that one is writing about" (1) The first one happens because students don't receive the necessary practical information to know how to what needs or not to be cited. Rebecca Moore Howard and Laura J. Davis argues that student plagiarism can be prevented by discussing with them about intellectual property, and teaching them how to evaluate and understand their sources.
Internet is also 'blamed' for causing plagiarism. Nowadays, internet has become the first place students turn into to do their research because it's easier and fast. But "the immense amount of information available on the web from legitimate postings by reputable sources and from intentionally fraudulent paper mills has made electronic plagiarism a new problem facing social work educators" (Robert F. Vernon, Plagiarism and the Web, page 193).
On the other hand, James Porter presents us that plagiarism is, in a way, inevitable. In his article "Intertextuality and the discourse community" he shows how all text are interdependent because texts contain "traces" or ideas from other texts. He argues that consciously or unconsciously, writers include other people's thoughts or ideas into their text because writing is not an isolated creation and the writer is constantly influenced by his context. That is also what Stuart Green says in his article "Argument as a Conversation."
Hi Luciana,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great beginning to your essay on a writing construct. I like how you set up the introduction with these questions about plagiarism and how you show that there is this construct operating that makes us all think plagiarism is simple and should be easy to avoid. Your "conversation" shows that, in fact, it's not so simple and that plagiarism can come about as a result of many different factors. I like that your own voice and experience here, and that you have found some research relating to ESL, too.
Something you'll want to think about at you go forward. Where does your research (so far) lead you to? What conclusions can you draw about the subject? What further connections can you make? And perhaps most importantly, where can you enter the conversation? You want to be able to say- Here's how we can complicate the idea of plagiarism (by looking at the research) and then here's what we can do now to improve students thinking on the subject. How should students approach the concept of plagiarism? How should it be understood? How should it be taught?
You've got this great summary from Howard and Davis, but do you agree with it? Is it as simple as that? You bring some interesting authority and experience as an ESL learner. Do these researchers account for your particular struggles?
Consider these questions as you go forward. You're off to a really good start.