History professors and plagiarism

In reply to 02Pilot:

Are you the alter ego of M2Pilot? Did you plagiarize his name?

spitfirebill wrote: In reply to 02Pilot: Are you the alter ego of M2Pilot? Did you plagiarize his name?

No relation that I'm aware of. Just unrelated but coincidentally similar data points. Correlation does not imply causation.

Holy hell! I thought it was the same guy. Was about to ask if you flew a Mitsubishi.

spitfirebill wrote:

Appleseed wrote:

Type Q wrote: It kind of blew my mind. How do you plagiarize yourself?

Ask John Fogerty.

Was Fogerty accused of plagiarism? He thought he was sued for singing like himself.

Fogerty et al accidentally signed away the rights to CCR songs way back when (crooked management). So for the longest time he wouldn't do a CCR song because he'd have to pay royalties to his old agent (Saul Zaentz, Fantasy Records). http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/may/29/john-fogerty-creedence-clearwater-interview In 1986, this Zaentz character actually sued Fogarty, claiming plagiarism of a song he had written!

codrus wrote:

Type Q wrote: One of my nephews was telling me that at his college, students were getting dinged for plagiarism when they used the same text in more than paper. This was stuff where the student was the author. It kind of blew my mind. How do you plagiarize yourself?

It's not plagiarism, but it is academic dishonesty. Each paper is supposed to be a new, original work.

Does that standard mean that every sentence has to be unique to that paper?

spitfirebill wrote: Apparently some colleges use software to recognize plagiarism in term papers. One of my son's best friends got expelled when he got busted for it. Looks like the prof got busted.

No special software needed. Copy and paste a paragraph into google and it should show up. New HS teacher standard.

NOHOME wrote:

spitfirebill wrote: Apparently some colleges use software to recognize plagiarism in term papers. One of my son's best friends got expelled when he got busted for it. Looks like the prof got busted.

No special software needed. Copy and paste a paragraph into google and it should show up. New HS teacher standard.

Yea but this was like 15 years ago.

How do kids not get this? With my Journalism major/Philosophy minor, we were taught even if you reworded/reinterpreted an existing passage to cite that.

And I graduated 10 years ago from college. Not to mention it's not difficult at all to cite your research.

z31maniac wrote: How do kids not get this? With my Journalism major/Philosophy minor, we were taught even if you reworded/reinterpreted an existing passage to cite that. And I graduated 10 years ago from college. Not to mention it's not difficult at all to cite your research.

Lack of consistent enforcement. Very few students I get have encountered this requirement throughout their academic careers, and as such most don't see it as a necessary part of the process.

02Pilot wrote:

z31maniac wrote: How do kids not get this? With my Journalism major/Philosophy minor, we were taught even if you reworded/reinterpreted an existing passage to cite that. And I graduated 10 years ago from college. Not to mention it's not difficult at all to cite your research.

Lack of consistent enforcement. Very few students I get have encountered this requirement throughout their academic careers, and as such most don't see it as a necessary part of the process.

Must be. Every English class and History class I ever had to do some sort of research on, even if it was a book report, the teachers told us how to cite a quote and how to cite a paraphrase. It isn't hard to do, although doing it to the specifications of APA/MLA/Chicago was annoying and easy to mess up.

I got pinched for no citing. I was told in a previous class, that if the information can be found in three or more works, it's concidered common knowledge about the subject.

My subject was historical in nature. It was a history of the Boeing B-17. Things like wingspan were found in every single publication, so I didn't cite. Apparently my English teacher disagreed. I argued that since I wasn't alive in 1935, every sentence I wrote would need to be cited, regardless of the commonality. I showed her pictures of myself within the aircraft. No dice.

Still Pisses me off years later.

Appleseed wrote: I got pinched for no citing. I was told in a previous class, that if the information can be found in three or more works, it's concidered common knowledge about the subject. My subject was historical in nature. It was a history of the Boeing B-17. Things like wingspan were found in every single publication, so I didn't cite. Apparently my English teacher disagreed. I argued that since I wasn't alive in 1935, every sentence I wrote would need to be cited, regardless of the commonality. I showed her pictures of myself within the aircraft. No dice. Still Pisses me off years later.

That rule about common knowledge is rather arbitrary and fairly useless. What to cite vs. what qualifies as common knowledge is a tricky subject, not given to blanket rules. I tell students they should be writing for their peers, which should inform the standard; in other words, did you know it prior to researching it? Do you think your friends would? No? Then cite it. I also tell them that I will never penalize them for too many citations, but I will rip them apart for too few. It's usually quite easy to tell which students took the assignment seriously.

Correct citing of sources is taken very seriously these days. That's all the insight I will add here.