Cite-Check: On Collaboration, Plagiarism, and Everything in Between

Introduction | A Situational Definition of Plagiarism | What's Citation For? | How Do I Know When I'm in Trouble?
How Do I Protect Myself? | Why Shouldn't I Cheat?

Defining what constitutes plagiarism is pretty easy--as long as you stick to the most obvious and most extreme examples. Everybody knows that you've plagiarized if you handed in work that isn't your own--work your friend produced for another course, say, or a paper that you bought on the Internet. But what about the grayer areas? What about using an idea you've heard in class? Or citing the same passages and making the same points that you came across in one of your peer's rough drafts? How can you tell when you've crossed the line and gone from collaborating to plagiarizing?

In our role as administrators of a large Writing Program, we've seen just how difficult it is for even the most well-intentioned students to maintain a clear and unassailable distinction between collaborating and plagiarizing. Consequently, we have over the years met with many students who had been encouraged in class to participate in peer review, only to end up in one of our offices having been accused of plagiarism. This can be pretty confusing for the student, who just thought she was doing what she'd been told, and the teacher, who can end up feeling betrayed or taken advantage of. And, at a time when the news is filled with stories of famous historians and prominent political commentators accused of plagiaries, it can seem like there's a double standard out there, where students are held to one standard and those at the highest level of the academy are held to another.

We know that many writing teachers are very concerned about plagiarism; and we recognize, too, that the integrity of the academy rests, to a large degree, on the assumption that everyone involved in intellectual work can be trusted to produce original work. We've planned this area of our web site, though, not because we find ourselves overly worried about the authenticity of the writing that we receive. Indeed, in our courses, where students are encouraged to make genuinely original connections rather than cover, once again, territory that thousands upon thousands of other undergraduates have already reported on, outright plagiarism is a remarkably rare occurrence.

We provide the modules that follow, then, not because we think students need to be told that they shouldn't buy papers or copy papers off the Internet or hand in work that isn't their own. To our way of thinking, if a student entering college needs elementary ethical instruction of this kind, the best place to receive such training is not likely to be the writing classroom. Our goal, rather, is to help students navigate the gray areas that emerge whenever one engages in serious intellectual inquiry. In such an environment, where class discussions are exciting, peer review of student work is helpful, and collaboration continues on long after class is over, it can be difficult to tell exactly who came up with the idea or insight that eventually makes its way into the paper. The challenge, in other words, for students and for their teachers alike, is to develop ways to work together productively in the ambiguous world of lived experience.

In the months ahead, we will be publish modules here that describe the kinds of problems students typically run into when working in such an environment.