Description
Book SynopsisClassroom Cheats Turn to Computers. Student Essays on Internet Offer Challenge to Teachers. Faking the Grade. Headlines such as these have been blaring the alarming news of an epidemic of plagiarism and cheating in American colleges: more than 75 percent of students admit to having cheated; 68 percent admit to cutting and pasting material from the Internet without citation. Professors are reminded almost daily that many of today''s college students operate under an entirely new set of assumptions about originality and ethics. Practices that even a decade ago would have been regarded almost universally as academically dishonest are now commonplace.
Is this development an indication of dramatic shifts in education and the larger culture? In a book that dismisses hand-wringing in favor of a rich account of how students actually think and act, Susan D. Blum discovers two cultures that exist, often uneasily, side by side in the classroom. Relying extensively on interviews conducted
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Like Margaret Mead among the Samoans, Blum views her subjects—digital natives—as an exotic species. She notes their constant use of email, text messaging and the Internet. She declares them to be 'the wordiest and most writerly generation in a long while' and anoints their conversational tendency to quote TV shows and films an admirable form of 'intertextuality.' They are 'storming the barricades' of a new digital future, she claims, using the Internet to engage in collaborative work and to expand their knowledge base. She finds the hapless faculty members charged with teaching such students 'embattled and bewildered.' In other words: Get Twittering, grandma. Blum also embraces various postmodern theories of plagiarism. Internet-savvy, intertextual ingénues don't steal words; they engage in 'patchwriting' and 'pastiche,' constructing essays the way they create eclectic music playlists for their iPods. This practice, she argues, can be viewed as a form of homage or reverence as much as theft. In fact, as Ms. Blum’s research demonstrates, students today view writing — however we might define such a thing in a 'pastiche' culture — as a purely instrumental activity: a means to an end.
* Wall Street Journal *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Plagiarism in College1 A Question of Judgment: Plagiarism Is Not One Thing, Once and for All2 Intertexuality, Authorship, and Plagiarism: My Word, Your Word, Their Word -> Our Word3 Observing the Performance Self: Multiplicity versus
Authenticity4 Growing Up in the College Bubble: The Tasks and Temptations
of Adolescence5 No Magic Bullet: Deconstructing PlagiarismConclusion: What Is to Be Done?Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
