Someone mentioned high school English classes as the root of
students' misunderstandings about quoting, paraphrasing, and plagiarism.
I think it's more a problem related to the type of paper being written,
rather than the grade level. In literature classes students are often
taught to support their own ideas with excerpts from the text. In this
case, a paper written without extensive supporting quotes might indicate
that a student hadn't actually read the book. The literature teacher
evaluates the paper for creative insights that reflect careful reading
and understanding of the text, and those insights need to be carefully
supported by the original text. Even published MLA papers of literary
analyses include substantial illustrative quoting.
Unfortunately, many students are never required to write any other type
of paper in HS. Their first experience may be the literary analysis
paper and they find it difficult to make the transition to scientific
writing. I've had many students comment that they received As in all
of their English classes and can't understand why their writing was
unacceptable in Psych. Maybe some initial discussion of how writing
differs between disciplines will help cue the students that what worked
before will not work now.
All my best,
Pam Shapiro
