Fighting plagiarism (conversation during Synthesis webinar)

[Janet Murray]

In the Synthesis webinar, Mike noted that he prefers the language "giving credit to your sources," and shared several strategies for emphasizing citations in a positive way to create a "culture of citing." Colet commented, "Rather than fighting it/criminalizing it [plagiarism], let's build understanding of why it is important to credit sources from K through 12.  For the Common Core states, the need to build understanding starts in K with doing limited group research projects.  Think Super 3: Plan, Do, Review.  Youngest students can tell us where they got information: people, computer, book, etc."

Janet mentioned that she used to ask students how they would feel if someone else submitted their art project under their own name. She thinks that students can understand feeling mad, sad, bad better than an abstract concept like plagiarism. Another participant shared "I actually have my students draw a picture, write a poem, etc. and then turn them in unsigned. I then randomly hand them back out and tell students to sign the work they received if they like it. They then show/present the work they "plagiarized" as their own. Of course the real creator protests and we get a really dynamic conversation about feelings about someone else taking credit for their work."

Someone else shared Kate Hart's "quick and graphic guide" to citing sources, using a quotation from J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter characters to give examples of acceptable and unacceptable use. See http://www.katehart.net/2012/06/citing-sources-quick-and-graphic-guide.html