Universities Weblog

Here's one from the "It Pays to be Ignorant" file.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, a British student is suing the University of Kent because he got caught plagiarizing and the university is withholding his diploma. What's his beef? He thinks the university is negligent because it failed to inform him that plagiarism is a no-no.

I teach writing, and I've seen my fair share of plagiarism. Some cases, to be certain, are examples of poor paraphrasing or a lack of proper citation. Others represent pure cheating. While I'll acknowledge that plagiarism has its gray areas, I'll also bet that most universities do a pretty good job of letting students know what's right and wrong.

So what, specifically, did this kid do? Here's what he told the London Times (per the Chronicle):

"[...] I always used the Internet, cutting and pasting stuff and matching it with my own points. It's a technique I've used since I started the course. I never dreamt it was a problem."There's nothing wrong with that "technique" per se, as long as readers know which ideas are yours and which come from someone else. A student about to graduate from college should understand that elementary concept.

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