A perspective on plagiarism

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 27: Transforming Knowledge into Wisdom Holistic Approaches to Teaching and Learning

July, 2004, 359 pages
Published by
ISBN
0 90 8557 58 2
Abstract 

Premeditated plagiarism is a serious breach of scholarly ethics and, as such, needs to be addressed by rules of conduct that are clear, significant, and above all consistently applied. However, most cases of what is identified as plagiarism could more usefully be recognised as symptoms of students’ difficulty in engaging with academic discourse and developing a scholarly voice. This view is supported by analysis and discussion of data from preliminary research surveys and focus groups.

The paper argues that if universities take plagiarism seriously, they must take responsibility for providing a learning environment that stimulates academic engagement and gives students guidance in developing their own scholarly ‘voice’. Universities’ investment of time and resources needs to be directed towards holistic teaching and learning strategies rather extrinsic techniques of detection and punishment

Keywords: Motivation to plagiarise; learning environment; university responsibility