Thoughts on Starting a Different
Conversation with Students
about Maintaining Academic
Integrity
Stephanie Roach, University of Michigan-Flint
Context
The following was presented in session D8:
Handouts, Flyers, and Signs: Small Conversations
that Make a Big Difference. The aim of each
individual presentation in the session was to
demonstrate how larger rhetorical and pedagogical
problems are addressed through the seemingly
utilitarian documents—the handouts, the flyers, the
signs—we create in our various roles as writing
teachers and writing program administrators. What
do these documents say about the classrooms and
programs we represent? What disciplinary
knowledge is embedded in them? What values do
they affirm? What kinds of conversations do they
start?
Each individual presenter began their presentation
by asking the audience to participate in a small
activity designed to generate discussion and frame
the issue to be presented through a specific handout,
flyer, or sign. In this case, a handout on academic
integrity was shared along with thoughts on its
development and use and the kinds of big
conversations with students it might help start about
plagiarism as a rhetorical problem, the contested
boundaries of plagiarism, the larger context of
teacher-readers’ grave responses to plagiarism, the
ethos of one’s rhetoric, the significance of revision,
and how boundaries between writers and readers are
negotiated through rhetorical choice that attends to
the rhetorical effect of writing on readers.
Conversation Starter
Think about the physical or emotional reactions
you’ve had when reading something that seems to
violate academic integrity (or, for you lucky few, the
reactions you think you might have reading
something that seems to violate academic integrity).
What are two or three words you would use to
describe your responses?
Whether you hit on the words shared by those
attending the session—betrayal, shock,
disappointment, anger, opportunity, incredulous,
sad—you likely hit on words that point to a visceral,
affective, or gut reaction, words that remind us that,
no matter the kind of response, readers have a
reaction to writing that seems to violate academic
integrity.
We react because of some message we have
received in and between the lines of the text. The
page practically screams out to us: “I didn’t learn
anything in your class about documentation”; or,
“Look here—something is obviously different from
the rest”; or, “Hold up—is that right?”. We react and
respond to the rhetorical effect of the choices
students have made in their writing.
Background and Framing Questions
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the variety of
reactions (changing and changeable) I have and my
colleagues have had to seeing in print something that
definitely hits on the spectrum of academic
misconduct. What are those first triggers, hints, signs
on the page, and why do they seem, when we see
them, to be perfectly obvious to us, and yet not at all
clear to students—or sort of clear enough that some
of the students get what happened this time (or say
they do) but don’t know how to revise or stay out of
trouble in a future essay or class?1
I’ve even had several students say they were
surprised I could see things that turn out to be
unquoted passages or way too close to the original
paraphrasing, helping to build a reputation that I have
some kind of magical, alien quality, or that I really
am out to get certain students—both of which
unnecessarily muddy and mystify the issue of
academic misconduct.
I’ve tried talking with students about why the
academic community feels so strongly about the
concept of academic integrity, how serious the
consequences might be, how easy it is for me to find
something on Google if they found something on
Google. We’ve talked about the types and varieties
of plagiarism, what motivates academic misconduct
(I believe there are hundreds of serious reasons
students might be tempted), and how one might make
different choices to overcome even the strongest
motivation. I talk about the choices that go into
making up a final draft and the very fact that the idea
of a final draft is about sending the message that you
as the writer are secure enough in all your choices to
now stand behind every word and be judged.
In other words, I try to be focused on the idea of
making choices in writing and revision so that
students get in the habit of thinking about how their
choices create rhetorical effects, and I try to be
upfront about what informs my reading so that
students can make more informed rhetorical choices.
Ultimately, in line with Diane Pecorari’s claim
that plagiarism is “fundamentally a specific kind of
language in use” (1), I see maintaining academic
integrity as making smart rhetorical choices that send
an accurate or at least good faith message to readers
about how one text intersects with others. How we
construct our sentences and what clues we leave
readers send messages not only about the content of a
piece of writing but also how readers should read that
writing. And what the page says may belie our best
intentions.
The questions, then, that I’ve been considering:
How do I get students to see the messages they are
sending? How do I get across that rhetorical devices
we use or don’t use such as quotation marks or voice
markers have rhetorical effects? How do I start the
conversation that essays that avoid academic
misconduct aren’t not doing something (like not
stealing/cheating), instead they are actively doing
something by employing specific writing strategies
and sending appropriate messages to readers?
The idea of not doing (don’t take others words
and ideas) can be easily understood, but the doing
required not to violate academic integrity (making
choices in one’s writing that tell readers everything
they need to know) takes a kind of rhetorical savvy
developed by serious practice. The question for me
has been how to bring students into the conversation
where maintaining academic integrity isn’t about
avoiding something obvious (which most students
feel they can certainly avoid already), but doing
something very subtle (which many students don’t
yet see)2.
Thus, over the years, I’ve been trying to build
better handouts for students that address issues of
academic integrity in the context of the messages we
send on the page and the fact that things like
quotation marks and ellipses—every little choice
really—have rhetorical effects. Quotation marks, for
example, say to the reader “hey, the ‘I’ you’ve been
reading is not speaking anymore,” and smart readers
will want to know why, why give up valuable real
estate to someone else. Smart writers, then, need to
use the quotation mark to be honest about who said
what, but more importantly, they need to help readers
understand who is speaking in the acknowledged
quotation, why they are speaking, and why their
words are so important. Good, ethical writing does
not result from not doing something, but rather from
actively making rhetorical choices that attend to and
fulfill the “metatextual” (Pecorari) needs of readers.
Invoking Diane Pecorari, Wendy SutherlandSmith reminds us of the “six essential elements of
plagiarism” (70): 1) An Object, 2) Which Has Been
Taken, 3) From a Particular Source, 4) By an Agent,
5) Without (Adequate) Acknowledgment, 6) And
With or Without Intention to Deceive (70-72). What
we put on the page helps mark the object, the source,
our intended use as an agent, and how we mean
others to view this piece of text. I’ve been trying to
design handouts that help students come at the issue
of academic integrity from this perspective of
rhetorical choices and rhetorical effects so they see
plagiarism as a rhetorical problem in the writing
instead of something they can avoid outside the
writing by simply knowing the definition of
plagiarism or being a good person.
The Handouts
The handouts I’ve built oversimplify of course, yet
they help me frame the discussion of academic
integrity in a new way and help the class get their
hands into real language uses. The materials I shared
at the conference cannot be fully reproduced here, but
I can describe their structure and function.
In one handout I describe and illustrate three basic
kinds of sentences we use to signal our own
contributions and the contributions of others: the
sentence that does not use quotation marks or include
an in-text citation, the sentence that does not include
quotation marks but does include an in-text citation,
and the sentence that includes quotation marks and an
in-text citation. The handout draws these types of
sentences out in words, and in class, I illustrate the
sentences visually with long lines, quotation marks,
and/or parenthesis.
An example from the handout: This kind of
sentence without quotation marks but with an in-text
citation and often a voice marker that introduces or
references another person or author tells the reader
that I am using my words and my way of writing to
describe or investigate the ideas of someone else (intext citation). Visually this could be represented as:
_________________________(
).
The handout also includes direct information for
students such as a note about the sentence type
(example: when quoting others, using quotation
marks around word for word passages and including
an in-text citation helps you avoid academic
misconduct, but good writing will do more than that),
a tip for crafting this kind of sentence, and an
example.
The back of the handout then describes and
illustrates three kinds of misconduct: failing to signal
the contributions of others by taking words, taking
syntax, or taking ideas. Under each type of
misconduct sections from student essays are printed
with permission as well as original passages from a
source contributing to the student’s work. The
handout describes for students the kind of rhetorical
problem encountered in the student sample (example:
The sentence tells the reader that these words and this
way of writing belong to the student. However, the
entire passage is essentially a direct word for word
quotation. The student has used the source’s words
but has not told the reader). Ultimately the handout
asks students to help work out solutions to the
rhetorical problems presented in the passages.
A second handout then asks students to get more
directly involved in revision. An introductory
paragraph to a student essay is printed with
permission and an original passage from the website
used by the writer is included. Students are asked to
look for the clues the writer is sending to readers
about what is his and what belongs to others and to
make suggestions for other rhetorical choices this
writer could make in revising and strengthening his
introduction.
Early Results
Of all the conversations I can start with students
using these handouts, my favorite is the focus on
head to toe revision. I’ve been pleased with the way
students get into the material and how more students
sit up and take notice during the conversation (rather
than tuning out what they think they already know).
Those who have, say, plagiarized by thesaurus see
the risky messages they’ve been sending.
In focusing on rhetorical choices, not just rules of
conduct, students come to ask better questions about
academic integrity and engage in better conversations
about how writing works and why. I’ve also noticed
fewer academic integrity violations in my sections
and certainly far less surprise and confusion when I
do have to address an instance of misconduct.
Ultimately, the handouts help completely reframe an
important issue and allow me to draw on a significant
and rich disciplinary discussion.
Notes
1. I agree with Wendy Sutherland-Smith that
students have trouble with plagiarism in
“operational” not definitional terms (155);
see also her concerns about repeat offenders
(2).
2. Pecorari has an excellent discussion that
illuminates not only the subtleties but the
vast complexities of citation (see especially
chapters 3 and 4).
Works Cited
Pecorari, Diane. Academic Writing and Plagiarism:
A Linguistic Analysis. New York: Continuum, 2008.
Print.
Sutherland-Smith, Wendy. Plagiarism, the
Internet, and Student Learning: Improving Academic
Integrity. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.