Citing your sources is SO 20th century...

Here it is, further proof that the Internet is eating our brains.


In this latest installment on how the Internet is destroying our intellect, college professors are finding themselves dealing with a rise in the use of plagiarism.

It seems that here in the Internet age, student's cannot grasp the idea of what plagiarism is, believing that all of this information is just out there, floating on the Internet, free for anyone to use.

Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age

Professors used to deal with plagiarism by admonishing students to give credit to others and to follow the style guide for citations, and pretty much left it at that.

But these cases — typical ones, according to writing tutors and officials responsible for discipline at the three schools who described the plagiarism — suggest that many students simply do not grasp that using words they did not write is a serious misdeed.

It is a disconnect that is growing in the Internet age as concepts of intellectual property, copyright and originality are under assault in the unbridled exchange of online information, say educators who study plagiarism.

Digital technology makes copying and pasting easy, of course. But that is the least of it. The Internet may also be redefining how students — who came of age with music file-sharing, Wikipedia and Web-linking — understand the concept of authorship and the singularity of any text or image.

“Now we have a whole generation of students who’ve grown up with information that just seems to be hanging out there in cyberspace and doesn’t seem to have an author,” said Teresa Fishman, director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University. “It’s possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take.”

Professors who have studied plagiarism do not try to excuse it — many are champions of academic honesty on their campuses — but rather try to understand why it is so widespread.

According to these new standards, I don't need to post a link to the original story, right?



[edit on 8/2/10 by FortAnthem]

reply to post by FortAnthem

Yea this is old news but what can you do?
I for one cherish the internet very much and would like no sanctions, you hear me NWO?
No SANCTIONS!!!

Its certainly a problem. I typically cite journals and such, but when I shoot my papers through the "Plagerism Check" I get hits though I didn't knowingly copy someone's work. I think that part of the anomaly is that everyone is open to put their thoughts out for the world to see, so its hard to be original.

One of my wife's friends a couple of weeks ago got a zero on a paper that she wrote because of plagerism. The Professor never bothered checking the reference until she badgered him about it. The plagerism results were cited from her (the student) with parts from a previous article that she had written a year or so ago.

Certainly the problem is partly that people will just copy and paste answers. I've seen it and I'm sure many have, but Plagerism Checkers will flag papers for seemingly arbitrary general knowledge statements and that's a problem too.

It's sad to see that today's kids have such a sense of entitlement and a belief in community (communist) property that they cannot even be bothered to recognize work that was done by others.

The people who put that information on the Internet worked hard to gather their information, (hopefully) verify their facts and present it in an interesting and readable manner. They deserve to have their contribution recognized.


I wonder if the whole file sharing phenomenon wasn't an attempt by TPTB to destroy the sense of ownership of property. They start off with questioning the validity of "intellectual property" then will inevitably move on the elimination to a right to physical property as well.

The heavy handed tactics of those seeking to enforce their copyrights are intended to cause a backlash, thus further strengthening the sense of entitlement of the people and further erode the concept of ownership of anything.

[edit on 8/2/10 by FortAnthem]

reply to post by FortAnthem

It's sad to see that today's kids have such a sense of entitlement and a belief in community (communist) property that they cannot even be bothered to recognize work that was done by others.

Eh? So..If it's community property, then why shouldn't one use the same information as someone else has? I mean sure, I understand that credit should be given where credit is true, but is quoting someone / using someone elses work really that bad? Crazy unrelated example: Lets say you make a delicious dinner - You're probably using someone else's recipe! OH NO! I hope you're letting everyone know where you borrowed that info!

The people who put that information on the Internet worked hard to gather their information, (hopefully) verify their facts and present it in an interesting and readable manner. They deserve to have their contribution recognized.

Not everyone who actually gathered the information had the chance to put it on the internet, so speculating whether they wanted the information to be shared with everyone and someone possibly using the same info without adding their name in caps as the one who they referred the info from is irrelevant. Although, why be a scientist or otherwise a person who strives to gain knowledge if one does not share the said knowledge? Although, I would understand that some lesser known scientists and researchers do want the credit they deserve, but I'm talking about known people here.

I wonder if the whole file sharing phenomenon wasn't an attempt by TPTB to destroy the sense of ownership of property. They start off with questioning the validity of "intellectual property" then will inevitably move on the elimination to a right to physical property as well.

I wonder if the whole "intellectual property"-poopstorm isn't an attempt by TPTB to gain copyright profits of the bible. Or any other religious book. I can see it on the court already, " VS. Everyone on using the copyrighted product "God" without their permission!"
Oh and umm..Why would "TPTB" want to "eliminate the right to own physical property"? By all logic, that's exactly what they do not want. As far as I've understood, they like having money and living in fancy mansions etc. Do they not?

And if you made it so far: I dont necessarily think you're wrong. I'm trying to get a different viewpoint in here. I think both sides on the extreme are bad in the whole copyright issue.

And to be more on topic; Sure, students should actually learn the things and not copy and paste everything. But I think what people are missing here is that almost every kind of information is just a click of a mouse away in these days. And school is kind of re-inventing the wheel. So I'd guess most of the kids feel like they're repeating what has already been told...Essentially copying something over. If actually written, is it worth more than when copied and pasted?

Two last things:

Here it is, further proof that the Internet is eating our brains.

Dont hate the internet so much, after all, you're using it. (I know you dont, I'm just saying )

It seems that here in the Internet age, student's cannot grasp the idea of what plagiarism is, believing that all of this information is just out there, floating on the Internet, free for anyone to use.

Well, is it not? I for one think that all information should be available. Well, I guess "How to make a nuke"-plans could be taken away. But yeah. I do believe I have the right to view in example Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica for free if I want to. Then again, newton is dead so I dont think he's missing on any payments.

Piracy isn't always bad, after all the idea is Information freely available for everyone. Kind of like Deny Ignorance IMO

we all work from a common pool of information.
If a written work is in your own words it isn't plagerism...if it is verbatum from another writer it is plagerism.
plagerism used to happen in the world of books.

As you can see here on ATS there are many reasons for an inaccurate opinion...posting qualified references gives "weight" to an opinion.

Kids are lazy plain and simple. I take online courses and you wouldnt believe how much plagiarism I have seen. I have known a few people who cheated their way through school and they said it was quicker to pay someone else to do it. They didn't want to miss out on other things by studying. I even turned one of them in and NOTHING happened. He still goes to school there and I guarantee he is cheating his way all the way through.

Recently I caught a girl in my last class plagiarize all her assignments since the first week. I noticed it in the 4th week and courses are only 6. I was reading a link earlier in the day and it was really informative so I used it as a source and when I saw her post it was word for word. I noticed it after reading one paragraph, which was 3 sentences long. I figured it out by copy and pasting her entire assignment in google I always thought this one girl was really smart because her answers were always so long and in depth and she used the proper terms for the course and she was always one of the first two people to post and she always posted days early. After I found this I copy and pasted all her previous assignments and found out they were all copied. So I called her out in the class online because at this point I was pissed. I thought she was a student like me wanting to learn and then I find she is just like many others I know in school who just copy everything and think it won't get noticed and sadly they are right. I sent an email to my teacher and she let the damn girl redo her assignments! Our own handbook says that plagiarism is grounds for automatic expulsion. We even had an assignment about plagiarism in the first few days! This girl plagiarised an assignment on plagiarism. Then this girl goes on to attack me saying I was lying and she didn't cheat. I found it hilarious because any moron with google can tell she cheated..heck any search engine would show it. The teacher did nothing and I guarantee this girl will just cheat again. There is a possibility we could have more classes together and you can bet I will be watching her.

The biggest problem with online classes is the fact that it's easier to cheat and that the teachers DONT really pay attention to your actual assignment, the students are the ones basically grading one another. Anyone who has had online classes will know what I am talking about. So imo it's like they could careless if someone is cheating.

I know plenty of students who buy their papers online and think nothing of it. They don't want to work for it, they just want it to be given to them and that is it. Personally this is scary, how do they expect to do their jobs later on if they just copied another? How do you learn anything this way? If this is what the future of the world holds then we are screwed even more.


I have heard people say "I have to put a source for the internet?" Many people seem to think if you got it off the internet these rules don't apply. I have noticed that all my classes so far had an assignment on plagiarism and the punishment if caught yet they don't seem to really care when it does happen. It's like they just say it because they have to.

I don't think its as big of a problem as some of you are making it sound.

After all, when gigabytes of information are produced every day on the internet, one can't help but unintentionally plagiarize some things. Plagiarism as I was taught can also include paraphrasing and summarizing without saying 'according to'.

And then, as was mentioned earlier, what is to be considered general knowledge can never be considered plagiarism. So what has become general knowledge is perhaps increasing exponentially.

This is a good thing.

Similar experiences and thoughts can many times be 'originally' thought or experienced by multiple people, independent of each other.

It all depends on your environment and thought process through waking life.


But I think there is an underlying problem... and that is that Dogmatic Universities are becoming obsolete quite fast. When a teenager can learn loads more on the internet than he can in class, why would he want to waste time for class?

The social structure is built around the bureaucratic university system(like if you don't get a degree, your at a significant disadvantage) - yet the GLOBAL market for smarter people is growing much much faster than the ancient universities can keep up with.

By the time we graduate, we must be smarter than the curriculum that we started out learning, because the curriculum is being updated by gigabytes regularly.

Somebody graduating today, only adhering to textbooks and never researching on the internet, is at a great disadvantage to somebody that is in their freshman year spending a couple hours a day not only studying the textbooks, but studying the most up-to-date and frontier concepts in the field on the internet.


... if that makes sense. My 2c.



edit to add: And something like Wikipedia and Google, with access to such large populations, become themselves the repositories for General Knowledge. An encyclopedia is a reference for 'General Knowledge'. So, one can easily look up topics to find what the general knowledge is of a topic. If everyone in the world had the access to search the database of the Library of Alexandria from their homes, we would expect that the 'general knowledge' would increase incredibly fast.

This could be so fast, that even one generation apart would think that the younger generation was lazy and unintelligent. Maybe the younger generation subconsciously rejects the status quo system, because their brains have changed slightly to reflect the amount of general knowledge available at their fingertips. The status quo system is slow and very particular.

Many kids these days with ADD, ADHD, and other types of 'disabilities' like aspergers and autism are still very smart, but the system cannot adapt to their different learning needs. The system is a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies adapt slowly. So slow that an entire generation of kids can be left by the wayside because the system can't adapt to them.

In a round about way, I suppose that bureaucracies are dangerously limiting our evolution as a species

[edit on 3-8-2010 by beebs]

In to days society people use Google as if it was their own knowledge. But the fact is, we only spread the word from a already written page by copying the source.
You hardly see people today who actually challenge the source they use. Because critical thinking is not what we are trained to do, we are trained to find the source and use it. Not to question it.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
I wonder if the whole file sharing phenomenon wasn't an attempt by TPTB to destroy the sense of ownership of property. [edit on 8/2/10 by FortAnthem]

They don't believe in ownership of property? Seize theirs and watch what happens.

The only form of communisem that actally works is where money does not exist in tribal communities. Aborigines, Native americans etc.

Money 'is' the root of all evil. Money=power Power corrupts great men are always bad men.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
Here it is, further proof that the Internet is eating our brains.
[edit on 8/2/10 by FortAnthem]

It isn't the internet. I think we elected a Vice President of the United States which is a plagiarist.

Biden Admits Plagiarism in School But Says It Was Not 'Malevolent'

When it isn't malevolent then I see no problem with it. /sarcasm

You can argue that all information online should be open and free and it is actually. The US Copyright law let's you use portions of informtation from copyrighted material for educational purposes.

The issue about doing so without citing is that the exercise of writing a paper isn't to educate the instructor. Its to show application of what you have learned...a proof of learned knowledge in other words. So copying and pasting information and claiming it as your own isn't just ethically wrong, but it defeats the purpose.

Recently I was researching a few journals for an essay on Net Nuetrality. I came across an almost 30 page essay about it. I could have easily copied and pasted bits over, but I chose to paraphrase a few parts. I also cited the work after each paraphrase. It certainly wasn't general knowledge, therefore I should have cited my source anyway.

Someone put in a lot of research into their essay and it saved me a lot of research myself. The least I could do is credit them for their work.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I once wrote a paper for college using absolutely no references. The college professor marked me down in points stating I must use references as to how I came up with my information. I wrote the professor back stating that I had life experience and did not require references to write about a topic I was thoroughly familiar with.

References are used in college to create a mass conditioning effect and support those with authority to create references. I cannot make my own reference to information citing ("me") as a source, because I am going to college to learn that subject. In the professors mind they do not understand it is possible to learn something by simply reading, observing behavior, and understanding how people operate. In fact to acknowledge this possibility would invalidate (in their mind) their own authority. We can't have that now can we?

I think college needs a huge overhaul in how it functions in the digital age. I am in favor of every course being able to be challenged with life experience or alternative learning and a degree to be issued without ever attending a class.

Regardless of what "they" say out there. Citing sources here at ATS is 100% mandatory and strictly enforced. Posting work written by others.

It is also not so 20th centerty. Im in school now and my professors are more strict than ATS about citing soruces and citing them properly. You could be kicked out of school if it appears that you lifted work from someone and never gave credit for it - evevn if you found it on some random website with no apparent author. You must cite the URL.

[edit on August 3rd 2010 by greeneyedleo]

I feel bad for people who aren't bright enough to think their own thoughts. Especially if they're too dull to be aware of how pathetic it is to steal other people's work and submit it so that they can go back to picking their noses and watching the Cartoon Network. My brother - a C-level executive - told me one time that 80% of corporate professionals are not capable of doing their jobs to a minimum standard, and that soon or later it forces them to cheat like hell to simply survive. At least the kids in school are learning something that will help them in the business world.

Maybe this is why India has all of our tech and middle management jobs?

Right It's going to be even more 21st century because it's so much easier now to tell where you got the words you might be attempting to pass off as your own.

Many professors have been pretty on the ball about internet plagiarism for a long time now. Sounds like some have some catching up to do. And If students don't understand it they need to be taught. Plain and simple.

reply to post by Klavier


I don't think that having all of that information, freely available on the Internet is a bad thing. It's great actually. What I DO have a problem with is when people try to present that information as their own work. I don't think that citing one's sources is too high a price to ask for the use of that "freely available" information. It only takes a few extra keystrokes or a cut & paste to add a link to one's source.

Oh and umm..Why would "TPTB" want to "eliminate the right to own physical property"? By all logic, that's exactly what they do not want. As far as I've understood, they like having money and living in fancy mansions etc. Do they not?

TPTB want a Soviet-style collectivism in which some are "more equal" than others. They want to turn the mass of humanity into their slaves, dependent upon living off of the collective wealth of the nation, while they, the "producers of wealth" continue to live their privileged lives.

Perhaps Communism is not their ultimate goal, perhaps what they want is to create is a Servile State in which the employers are obliged to provide the people with a stable, minimum standard of living in return for the people's unquestioning servitude. In such a system, the rich continue to be rich but the rest of us are pushed down and forced to live in a collective state of misery in return for the "stability" such a system would create.

This is why TPTB create financial upheavals from time to time, almost on a regular basis. They do not want us to be accustomed to any sense of stability, constantly fearing that at any moment we could lose everything to the course of events outside our control.

Notice how the Rich have already bounced back from this financial crisis. It was engineered to make US suffer, not them. In the end, the masses will gladly accept losses to their freedoms in order to get the meager stability TPTB offers them.

And school is kind of re-inventing the wheel. So I'd guess most of the kids feel like they're repeating what has already been told...Essentially copying something over. If actually written, is it worth more than when copied and pasted?

Here, I think you've hit the problem with modern education right on the head. Students these days are taught to recite information that was given to them by their instructors. The ability to think for one's self is seen in a negative light by academia, they just want conformity.

A classical education focused upon bringing out the most in the human person; students were taught to think for themselves, evaluate their sources and come to their own conclusions based upon the information available to them. In this day and age, a classical Liberal Arts curriculum is seen as folly by a world which sees schooling only as a way to acquire job skills for future employment. Many are discouraged from expanding their minds, seeing this as a waste of money.

Dont hate the internet so much, after all, you're using it. (I know you dont, I'm just saying

)

No, I don't hate the Internet but, I am concerned about the effects it has upon me and society at large.

While the Internet has the potential to awaken the masses and provide free access to information on a scale unknown in the world previously, it also has the potential to be used by TPTB to spread their insidious agenda in ways we are only starting to comprehend.

[edit on 8/3/10 by FortAnthem]