Plagiarism and Pedagogy: Reflections on the Causes and Consequences of Plagiarism among Engineering Students

ABSTRACT: Academics working in composition classrooms are reporting the increasing frequency of plagiarism in student writing. The problem is exacerbated by the internet, which blurs the definition of copyright and transforms the research process. One conclusion might be that our society suffers from a hopeless erosion of values. But recent research on plagiarism and our own classroom experiences bring us to consider another possible conclusion: that our positions on plagiarism are not as clear as we think they are. In fact, some of the lessons we now teach our students may actually oppose the standard academic definitions of scholastic dishonesty. For instance, what we call group work was once called collusion. And while pedagogical trends emphasizing collaboration ostensibly prepare our students for corporate teamwork, the shift may confuse the concept of sharing work. Moreover, the broad perspective that we encourage in preparing engineering students for careers in a global community means asking them to acknowledge that not all cultures agree on the boundaries of what conventional Western thought defines as intellectual property. Perhaps our web-surfing students aren’t less ethical than their forebears: perhaps they are internalizing some conflicting practices. If that’s the case, we, as educators, should rethink our own attitudes about academic integrity, uncover the contradictions between pedagogy and practice, and find