photo taken from BarryDahl [dot] blogspot [dot] com
I had this whole idea ready for this post. It was about my computer again, and how it's acting funky, and how amidst the economic recession (meltdown), I think I should be afraid of credit card fraud. But I decided against it, and instead, opted to bitch about something else: TurnItIn.com.
For students and professors, alike, this is said to be a valuable tool. It's "the Internet's most widely used and trusted resources for preventing the spread of Internet plagiarism." It's this new technology that allows students to submit their work to this "database" where it uses an algorithm to detect matches to other papers in the database and/or Internet. In theory, any correct matches would mean that particular student plagiarized. Makes sense and sounds good - in theory, that is.
Now, I'm not lazy nor would I be stupid enough to turn in a paper without citing my sources. I went to a high school where they stressed the importance of giving proper credit to the original work. They conditioned me to believe that writing is intellectual property that should be protected. I was even taught MLA format freshman year of high school, and it was reinforced every year thereafter (and then, had to miraculous switch to APA in college. Why don't they just teach both? Or, instead, just have one uniform way to cite sources so there's less confusion.)
I've never had an issue with citing my sources, but then at the same time, I've never been forced...ahem, required by my professors to use the website. Well, there's a first time for everything, and it detected 34% plagiarism in my paper.
Unheard of. I was infuriated. How is this software going to accuse me of cheating? I have not and will not ever blatantly copy someone else's work. That is their property, and I will never claim it as my own. It's unfair because I worked extremely hard on this paper, and I refuse to have some computer generated software tell me that my work is not legit.
The system is flawed because even though you cite your source, it will still claim that the information with quotations around it is plagiarism even though any 3rd grader can tell you that anything with quotes around it came directly from said source. And it tells me that I took sentences from websites that I haven't even heard of before. I know there's such a thing known as common knowledge, which means you don't have to cite it. Can I also inform you that this paper was a biography? Please, tell me how you can write a biography without using tons of facts and "common knowledge"? There's something seriously wrong here. Here's someone who understands me: BeatTurnItIn.com because sometimes I feel like no one does.
It's interesting because in the report, it shows you the exact website/paper where it found the "plagiarism." Not only does it list URLs, but it also gives you a link to other students' papers who submitted their work to this database. This means, that somewhere, someone (a TurnItIn.com employee) has access to every single student's paper who has ever been asked to submit their paper to the site. One person (or a few) is/are able to watch over every single thing in the database. This also means that since I've submitted my paper, mine is readily available for anyone who wants to read/use/steal it.
photo taken from flikr.com
(note: do you like all my citing?)
This gentleman, Bob, quoted in this blog says "Why are we violating authorial integrity to teach students that violating authorial integrity is wrong?"
Ironically, enough, their software steals our work - the very thing that TurnItIn.com says it combats. It steals our (students) intellectual property and stores it into who knows where for THEIR PROFIT. I guess steal isn't the correct word considering we sort of give permission for the site to store our paper in the database in the terms of use agreement. But what about the chance that someone could misuse their administrative powers and claim my paper as their own? Don't say it's not possible. This is the exact reason why TurnItIn.com exists.
This essay illustrates exactly how I feel about the new technological tool. It basically says how students should be the only ones who determine who has access to their intellectual property, and if TurnItIn.com wants to store our papers in their database, they should be forced to purchase it from us. The author of the essay also states that professors and teachers shouldn't rely on technology to detect plagiarism, as technology is often flawed and sometimes can't perform the work to that of a human brain.
They also state that professors and teachers should just "enforce the rules we have now," which is what I think is most important. Instead of buying into the hype that this software is 100% effective as its case studies proclaim*, they should just teach their students how to properly cite their sources. Accordingly, they should reinforce the importance of giving credit where it's due and how everyone has the right to protect intellectual property and anything else that belongs to us.
*Probably not accurate and I didn't cite my source, but would I have to submit this post to TurnItIn.com to verify?
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