Plagiarism

[Kristine Littrell <KMT7652@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU>]

I am puzzled by all of the recent postings about indiscriminate printing
and plagiarism.  I think one answer is more teaching.  When a class
comes in to my high school library to begin research on a topic, whether
it's a science, social studies, foreign language, English, health, or some
other class, I almost always begin with a short lesson.  I stand at the
overhead projection panel while one of the students does the "driving"
and the rest of the class and I use one of the student's topic to begin
a search.  Our search always includes discussion of the scope of each of
the CD ROM databases (we have MAS, SIRS, CD Newsbank, and Newsbank), and
a decision about how much paper would be required to print an article.
I tell students the decision is theirs, but we talk about alternatives
and environmental concerns.  Then we actually download an article from
one or more of the full text resources to disk.  We have formatted disks
available for students to purchase for $.50 (much the same as we have
always had a pencil machine available with pencils for $.10).  Sometimes
we actually exit the CD ROM databases and go into Word Perfect so the
students can see what to do with those downloaded articles and I talk
about the proper method for marking text to be imported into their papers
and use of parenthetical documentation.  The teacher is always there so
teachers' understanding of electronic resources is also addressed.

We still have an occasional student who prints a 15 page article but
I just gently remind them that I would be happy to show them how to
download when they have time.  These are not big problems - only
opportunities for good teaching.  I hope this helps some who are
struggling with these issues.

Kristine Littrell
kmt7652@rit.edu
Pittsford Mendon H.S.
Pittsford, NY