Student Mistakes on Term Papers — Mis-using Sources
This is arguably one of the most fraught areas of higher education academic policy. This is also the problem that is usually governed by robust university and academic policies, which include likely sanctions on the student all the way up to and including dismissal from programs. So this issue should be taken seriously. There are milder versions of the problem, and the range of instances that constitute ‘mis-use of sources’ can range from a simple lack of awareness of academic conventions up to deliberate academic dishonesty. But without doubt it’s something that students tend not to take as seriously as they should. And the responsibility for ensuring you stay on the right side of these policies is ultimately yours. It’s not like universities have not made their position abundantly clear, with multiple webpages and devoted sections of university websites given over to their dissemination. Usually, course syllabi are infused with warnings and substantial quotes from policy pages on the subject of academic honesty — and specific guidance on plagiarism.
One of the milder forms of mis-use, and one that can be readily rectified, is the tendency for some less experienced (and often less confident) students to engage in overquoting from your source material — this is a common problem. Tutors refer to this as ‘padding’. Padding can also refer to the repetition of the student’s own writing to fill up word count. But the liberal use of quotations is another method of meeting a substantial wordcount and avoiding penalization, but a tactic used at the expense of coherence and argument quality. Padding manifests itself when some students insert significant portions of quoted material from academic or online sources, sometimes amounting to over half of the total word count for the paper. The use of the quote falls outside academic dishonesty because it is done in full compliance with academic referencing conventions. The quotes are isolated into text segments and cited properly within the text and referenced in the bibliography.
The problem with this is that the tutor will invariably discount the overquoting as not reflecting a meaningful and appropriate use of source material support an argument, not least given its clearly utilitarian rationale. More substantially, there is the crowding out of precisely that element of a term paper that the tutor is trying to evaluate: YOUR voice, your perspective, your analysis. You can’t demonstrate higher order thinking skills if your paper is dominated by the thinking of someone else. If a substantial proportion of the paper is given over to the wholesale quoting from sections of scholarly work, then your voice is missing. And in a term paper, that is more or less fatal, at least as far as getting a high grade is concerned.
More seriously, there is the manifestly dishonest use of scholarly sources. This is when students fail to give credit to the original author for the text or the idea used. Whether in the form of a direct quote, or even the use of an abstract concept or insight, the failure to provide a proper citation and reference for the source is a breach of academic honesty. With the use of textual material, the case is clear cut: if you copy text from another work and insert it into your own paper without acknowledging where you got it — even if you’ve partially or wholly reworked the wording — you are guilty of plagiarism. Such mis-use can be easily detected as ‘non original content’ via plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin. If your paper is uploaded into the system and its content (or segments of it) are matched with other sources it will be flagged for review by the course tutor. Turnitin, for example, assembles a detailed report on all assignment submissions. It is important to understand that Turnitin does not actually determine if plagiarism has occurred. It merely highlights the non-original content in the paper for the tutor to review. The tutor determines whether plagiarism has occurred.
Much harder to determine, but still as serious, is the use of an abstract idea, concept or insight originating with someone else, which the student has included in their paper but failed to acknowledge properly in a citation and bibliographical entry. In this instance, it could be the expertise and deeper knowledge of your tutor that might identify your transgression. It’s just not worth the risk. As much energy would be expended trying to cover your tracks as you would use simply giving credit where it’s due and enhancing your credibility as a scholar operating within the norms of research practice.
One of the main reasons students seem to take this risk revolved around a lack of confidence in their own written expression. This might be because of a lack of confidence with writing or — more usually — a lack of confidence among non native users of English, those doing their degree using English as an additional language. As someone who taught ESL for a period, I have huge empathy for their plight. I have huge respect for students doing degree level study in a language other than their own. For many non native users, the written work of scholars can be intimidating. Their North American and UK peers can be intimidating when class discussion gets going. The young undergraduate will be at a loss to see how they might improve on the writing of an obvious expert. But the risk of getting caught is significant, and the consequences are more serious than students seem to realize.
Plagiarism is a very serious breach of academic honesty and in most universities, it is not tolerated. Increasingly, student work is subject to robust scrutiny through sophisticated software systems and tutors are becoming better equipped to detect and deal with plagiarism. Aside from that, the consequences for you as a student within an institution of higher education is significant if you were discovered to have plagiarized. Any hope of graduate admission might hinge on this. And believe me, if you’re found to have plagiarized you will wear that black mark in the eyes of many of the tutors within that institution. Surviving university, and excelling sufficient to graduating with a shot at a solid graduate program, is as much about avoiding negative attention as it is about grades. Future employability, to say nothing of the embarrassment of being identified as a cheat within the tutor community while you’re still there, all are major downsides to the risk of such behaviour.
The simple solution: just don’t do it. Write your papers yourself. Follow the conventions for citation and referencing. And do a cost benefit analysis. Which is more likely to do serious damage to your grade: your grammatically awkward sentences…or the discovery of your attempt at cheating by your tutor?
Photo Credit: Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash
