Writing Center addresses plagiarism issues
Ashley Smith
The Signal
Academic honesty is an issue that arises in any institution of higher learning, and UHCL is becoming more proactive in the fight to eliminate plagiarism issues including the recent release of the Writing Center’s new book, “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due.”
During the 2010-11 academic year, UHCL faculty reported 76 academic honesty violations Interim Dean of Students David Rachita has listened to the different reasons students give for these violations including the most common reason – simply not knowing.
“I do receive reasons from both international and domestic students as to why this is new territory for them,” Rachita said. “All students, whether they are domestic or international, there is a large group of them that say they have never experienced the documentation requirements as they’ve experienced them here at UHCL.”
Intellectual ownership in America differs from other countries that see it as more of a shared knowledge, which can cause citing issues for international students.
“Imagine you go to a different country where the standards change, it can become very confusing,” said Chole Diepenbrock, director of the UHCL Writing Center. “It’s not just a question of the rules changing, it’s also a question of cultural values. In the United States we value intellectual property quite a bit, we value originality of ideas, but other cultures value sharing and community. People lend things easily; people quote as a way of honoring the person they’re quoting. They don’t have to be perfect about it.”
Many domestic students, however, even though they have been exposed to citing and documenting sources as part of our education system, also cite lack of knowledge as a reason for academic honesty violations.
“They [domestic students] will also come and tell us that even if they knew that they had to document and cite that they were never really held to a certain style: MLA, APA, Chicago or any other style, as long as references were documented, they say they were okay,” Rachita said. “As with the international students, when they get here they find out how strict and serious we are about the proper way to document, there is a learning curve there as well.”
UHCL is taking measures to ensure that the learning curve happens before the potential of getting into trouble in the classroom.
For the past three semesters during International Student Orientation, Rachita has lead an academic honesty workshop, and this fall he has used that model to develop an academic honesty workshop for general new student orientation.
A major development in becoming proactive is the creation of the Writing Center’s book, “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due,” on how to correctly cite sources. Diepenbrock explained how even though there are books about plagiarism on the market, there are none that go beyond and explain why it is important to document sources in a relatable voice to students.
“I wanted the tone of this publication to be friendly and helpful, not to assume people are cheating,” Diepenbrock said. “We tried to make it positive.”
To achieve a friendly and relatable tone, Diepenbrock called on her tutors at the Writing Center to contribute not only articles and essays on different subjects, but also create cartoons and animations of all the tutors. They also decided to include the mascot for the UHCL Writing Center, Susie Q.
“We had some ‘Ask Susie’ columns that evolved so people were asking how to cite a tattoo, or how to cite something that somebody yelled outside of their car, stuff like that, silly things, so we wanted to make it fun, make it accessible,” Diepenbrock said.
The book, currently available for free to members of the UHCL community, is being reviewed for publication by the International Writing Center’s Association Press and, with approval, will be published and available for people outside UHCL to purchase. After giving away the first 1,000 copies, the book is now in its second printing.
So far this academic year, which began this fall semester, there have been four reported cases of academic honesty violations. Rachita is not sure what the reason behind the drop in numbers is, but he feels that getting the word out on the seriousness of academic honesty is helping the downfall.
“The more the students hear the message, whether it’s in print, whether it’s on the website, whether it’s face to face, whether it’s the workshops we’ve created, they hear the faculty talking in the classrooms, they hear their peers talking about it, then they understand that this campus takes academic honesty seriously and then there are fewer issues,” Rachita said. “That’s what we’re working towards, making sure that it’s talked about and it’s heard in many different places on campus that not only does everybody take it seriously, but everybody respects it and understands why it’s important.”
To pick up a free copy of “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due,” visit the Writing Center in the Student Services Building, room 2105.
