Here is one truth you will never hear a librarian, professor or college administrator admit: the difference between plagiarizing and not plagiarizing is, in fact, a vast, bottomless chasm of gray area that students underprepared, unequipped and unfamiliar with the treacherous terrain are rarely able to successfully navigate.
Let's begin with two examples. First, a student in an introductory calculus class is having trouble solving a problem set. She decides to use other resources to help her learn how to solve a difficult problem. She goes to Google, or perhaps her high school math textbook, and finds a similar problem. She learns the strategy and returns to her problem set to solve the problem. Does she cite her answer?
Second example: A student writing a paper wants to include some background information that will contextualize his argument. His research turns up "common knowledge" from various sources, but each source has a slightly different presentation of the information. None of the sources cite the information, but he chooses to reword the "common knowledge" he gleaned from a single source. Must he cite this information?
The Dartmouth honor code is unequivocal when it comes to academic integrity and plagiarizing. Any paper we write, any work we produce, ostensibly becomes a part of a larger "community of ideas" or "intellectual exchange" (if I may cite two phrases from the Dartmouth Institute for Writing and Rhetoric website) that takes place in the academic environment. By taking part in this conversation, we have implicitly agreed to abide by the rules and norms that govern academia. Students unwilling to follow these rules face judiciary hearings and, in most cases, multiple-term suspensions.
What I find problematic about Dartmouth's approach toward plagiarizing one that is widespread in higher education is that students are, at best, amateurs in the subjects in which they study, yet we are being held to professional standards in any work we submit. The rules of academic citation are complex and nuanced, allowing an incredible amount of border cases and lacunae. Professors and academics have both professional and financial incentives to learn the ins and outs of these arcane rules. Students who are newly embarking on scholastic endeavors, who may not have been exposed to the rules of academic integrity in high school, can not be held to the same standards as professionals in the field.
The College suggests that, whenever a student is in doubt about whether to cite or not, the student should err on the side of caution and cite. This approach, I believe, is equally wrongheaded and hypocritical. Students who over-cite information are equally at a disadvantage as those who under-cite. While the one who over-cites may make it through college without judicial consequences, he or she is as unprepared to take part in academic discourse as the one who pilfers paragraphs without attribution.
I do not think Dartmouth students should be coddled, and I believe that egregious, purposive acts of plagiarism should be punished. But when a student plagiarizes out of ignorance and efforts at citation have clearly been made a suspension and its consequential impact on future employment is too harsh. After all, we came to Dartmouth to learn how to become an active participant in academic discourse. Those who try and fail along the way should be provided with learning opportunities rather than harsh punishments.
Dartmouth offers a variety of educational tools and courses available to students to help us avoid plagiarizing. In many cases, professors do act with leniency and understand the difficulty of these rules. But the honor principles and regulations on plagiarizing at Dartmouth must reflect what is being done in practice. We must stop demonizing the student who fails to cite a specific passage and use the opportunity to guide students toward more accurate, more appropriate citation practices.
