In the weeks ahead, the Honor Committee will discuss and decide on a proposal to change its definition of plagiarism. JJ Litchford, vice president for community relations, presented the recommendation at the Committee's weekly meeting Sunday night. The change would clarify what could be considered plagiarism and add new prescriptions about paraphrasing.
The summer 2008 Semester at Sea controversy underscores the need for and importance of this proposal. During that summer's voyage, two non-University students were expelled from the program for plagiarizing materials they had submitted in academic papers. Because Semester at Sea is sponsored by the University, the honor code is in effect for all participating students. One of the two dismissed undergraduates, a student at Ohio University, said she was charged with using three sentence fragments verbatim from Wikipedia and also paraphrasing a movie summary from the site. Both students were told they must leave the ship and were subsequently dropped off in Greece. The incident sparked a degree of community backlash against the honor system and its implementation during the Semester at Sea trips.
Of course, many factors were at work in that episode beside a potentially ambiguous plagiarism definition, and the Committee cannot be held responsible for all of what happened to the students. Still, the case raised quite a few questions about the system and what ought to constitute plagiarism. As the most frequently reported honor offense, plagiarism's lack of a clear definition is especially glaring.
Litchford's proposal specifically calls for two important changes, the first of which is rewriting the manual's opening sentence about plagiarism. The current definition begins with, "Plagiarism is using someone's ideas or work without proper or complete acknowledgment." The proposed alternative would read, "Plagiarism is attempting to represent someone else's ideas or work as your own original ideas or work." Though the difference may seem subtle, Litchford noted that it would bring the University's definition closer to the nationwide standard. It also would remove the emphasis from citation to a more comprehensive notion of misrepresentation.
The second recommendation would add a sentence about paraphrasing to the definition that would be connected to a new section in the honor manual. The goal for this section, which would further define and explain paraphrasing, could also include examples of proper and improper use, Litchford said.
These changes seem constructive and send a positive message about the Committee's interest in clarifying the system for students. This revision of the definition more accurately captures the meaning of plagiarism, particularly as it relates to the honor code.
The Committee should take this process further and place the honor code's intent clause under similar scrutiny. As the term is currently defined, students are found to have acted with dishonest intent nearly by default - and this is one of the three criteria used to determine guilt. The Committee should develop, as it appears to be doing for plagiarism, a clearer, more systematic approach to intent that students can quickly grasp. Such a proposal could be analogous to the new section on paraphrasing: straightforward information coupled with concrete examples of acceptable and unacceptable defenses. Intent may well prove much harder to characterize this way than paraphrasing, which is precisely why action must be taken to remove as much ambiguity as possible from the process.
The Committee should pass Litchford's proposed changes, either in their current form or with minor modifications. At the same time, it should see this moment as an opportunity to press the conversation further. Plagiarism is not the only area with a bit of an identity crisis.
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