Erica Klein wrote:
> Alternating between grading papers and writing one about how
> people select flexible benefits, ack all around. Anyway, I've got one
> paper where 80% of the sentences can be mapped back to a sentence in the
> original article (the assignment is to write a 2-3 page summary of a
journal article). The
> student changed a few words in each sentence so none of them are exact
> matches.
>
> It is pretty clear that this student didn't understand what
> he was reading or writing, for example, he substitutued the word 'polish'
> for the word 'buffered' (we aren't talking about shining shoes) and he
substituted
> 'mentor' for 'member'. The sentences don't make much sense
> in many cases.
>
> I guess I'm concerned about explaining this type of plagiarism to the
> student. Since it isn't simply copying entire sentences, and
> since this is not a very bright student, how do you explain the parameters
> of acceptable paraphrasing?
When a student doesn't understand his/her own paper, there's clearly a
problem.
I just last week finished assessing this semester's crop of second year
students' understanding of authorship, using my authorship assessment (at
http://www.uwm.edu/People//pcsmith/author1.htm )
The assessment attempts to teach students about paraphrasing in this
section:
============================
Paraphrasing
If correct citation and quotation practices are sciences, paraphrasing is a
bit of an art. There are no hard-and-fast rules for paraphrasing. You must
instead develop a 'feel' for it. I'll try to provide some examples of what
constitutes an adequate paraphrase and what constitutes an inadequate
paraphrase. Here is a paragraph to be paraphrased:
"Long-term memory, that immensely complex storehouse, has also been most
extensively studied with the use of verbal materials, usually presented in
the form of long lists. As we shall see, this approach has resulted in some
extremely important findings, but it has also been a bit misleading. After
all, remembering lists of words is somewhat different from remembering a
conversation, a recipe, or the plot of a movie" (Klatsky, 1975, p.17).
Here is an inadequate paraphrase:
Long term memory is a complex storehouse that has been studied extensively
using verbal materials presented in the form of long lists. While this
approach has resulted in some important findings, it has been misleading.
Remembering a list is not like remembering a discussion or a movie (Klatsky,
1975).
Here is an adequate paraphrase:
We usually study long term memory by having subjects attempt to recall aloud
items from long lists. Because such a task is different in important ways
from the kinds of tasks long term memory is usually called upon to perform,
our findings are somewhat questionable (Klatsky, 1975).
You should first notice that in both cases the reference was provided
(Klatsky, 1975). This work is still the source of the ideas, even if not
directly quoted. The inadequate paraphrase is not really the student's own
words, but rather just Klatsky's words rearranged a bit (with a few words
omitted). If you were to turn in a paper containing this paragraph you would
have committed an act of plagiarism. It should be apparent that a person
could write such a paragraph without really understanding the original
paragraph at all. The author of the adequate paraphrase, on the other hand,
must have understood Klatsky's original paragraph. The meaning of that
paragraph is captured in the paraphrase, but the words used to express that
meaning are the author's own. An adequate paraphrase indicates to the reader
that the author understood the original material. Authors should not include
material that they do not understand. Rosnow and Rosnow refer to the
inclusion of material the author does not understand as "lazy writing"
(1992, p.49).
=============================
After reading this and participating in a (lively!) classroom discussion
about paraphrasing and plagiarism, 25 of 31 students successfully
paraphrased the three unfamiliar paragraphs at the end of the assessment. I
think that's about "par for the course" - roughly one of every five students
writes a "paraphrase" that is too close to the original on her first try
(i.e., that looks like the "inadequate paraphrase" above), and needs
additional instruction and practice. I do make all of the students
successfully pass this assessment, to head off the "no-one ever told me"
excuse down the line.
(by the way, if 1 in 5 is unsuccessful with a relevant handout in front of
her and following a classroom discussion, what does that say about the rate
with which we catch student plagiarism when we're not explicitly assessing
for it? I'll bet I plagiarized my way straight through my undergraduate
program and was never told)
My favorite part of this activity is the eagerness with which students
participate in the discussion. If you're not giving plenty of time for
students to ask questions about authorship/paraphrasing/plagiarism, I
suggest you do so. I've always found that they're very interested, and of
course getting their own questions answered is the best way for them to
dispel their misconceptions. Of course, there's always the student who
doesn't ask questions because she assumes she knows the answer...but is
wrong nonetheless. That's why there's an assessment. :)
I've found that students believe that they have to summarize each sentence,
or each paragraph when they summarize someone else's work. It's a revelation
to many that they can capture an entire paragraph in a short sentence. They
also don't realize that they're getting into trouble when they copy a list
of examples (the summary can usually do without the examples entirely).
I also suspect that from the student's point of view, the problem is almost
entirely in the nature of the assignment. He is thinking, "well, I don't
understand these articles, so how can I put them into my own words?". I'm
starting to question the value of the "summarize a published article"
assignment that so many of us give to our students. But that's another
issue...
This is a much more complicated task for students than we tend to believe
it is.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
