Problems with Plagiarism Policies

    The third journal assignment consisted of a reading by Margaret Price on plagiarism in literary papers and documents.  Price talked about how the policies for plagiarism are often unclear and leave too much room for misunderstanding for students.  The policy for plagiarism can change depending on the context of the paper, type of class one is in, and community in which one is living in.  The purpose of this assignment was to get a view of how some scholars view plagiarism and to think about our own issues and experiences with plagiarism. One issue I discovered in the reading was the fact that since literacy is constantly being altered, the plagiarism polices need to be changed every so often, as well.  Moreover, students in other countries may have different policies than we do in the United States.  This causes issues with international students. Thus, the problems with plagiarism is are examples of literary issue that could be researched about. The following questions are answered in my post:

• What are your personal experiences with plagiarism policies? How do they affect how you feel about writing/literacy?
• What other literacy issues have hurt or helped you become the writer you are today?

Journal 3 

            Ever since I began writing in elementary school, plagiarism has been a huge part of every English class discussion.  From my first research project, to my papers in college, “no plagiarizing” has always been a highly stressed phrase.  One of my biggest research projects took place in my junior year of high school.  The project was to pick a controversial issue that has been debated about in scholarly journals.  The paper was to be at least fifteen pages long and required over twelve sources.  The lessons, research, collecting data, and final drafts took place over the course of one semester.  One of our first lessons on the project was plagiarism.  My teacher stressed how we needed to write in our “own” words and cite every idea and quote we took from other authors.  However, a few students in my class were caught plagiarizing but on complete accident.  Since the project required many sources, keeping track of which ideas came from what author was tricky.  One friend of mine cited the wrong author in one paragraph of her paper and was ridiculed by our teacher for plagiarism. Another student got in trouble for patch-working, as she thought she could take a source’s sentence and plug in some of her own words instead.  This instance was also considered plagiarism. Luckily, I have never plagiarized but many of my friends have had bad encounters with plagiarism.

            The unfortunate experiences of my friends and fellow classmates made me scared about plagiarism.  I was constantly scared I would cite the source incorrectly or accidently cite the wrong source.  This made me very hesitant about what ideas from sources I could use.  If I had a great idea of my own, I would be afraid that my teacher would think I got the idea from some other source.  Often times I would not be able to use this idea, as the consequences of plagiarizing, even by accident, are so severe.  Additionally, I am always cautious about making sure my words do not sound anything like the author’s in a source I am using.

            Another literary issue that has helped me become the writer I am today is the constant change in data especially in science and discoveries.  For example, when writing a paper for a science class, such as Astronomy, where discoveries are constantly being made and new theories always developing, I must double check the validity of information in my sources.  If a source is dated ten years back, then I know I need to make sure the information has not changed.  This has made me a better writer because I know make sure all of my sources in all of my classes have up to date and authentic information. Therefore, a literary issue has helped me with my writing in all instances.