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Reframing the Conversation about Plagiarism, Citations, and Academic Honesty: Attribution and Student Writing

February 10, 2020 by C. Ross

If you are a faculty member, you may puzzle over the best way to explain citation and attribution to your students. It’s complicated–there are the formats and styles of said citations in MLA, APA, ACS, Chicago, and more, and each with its own idiosyncratic management of periods, commas, and italics. There are the purpose and function of attribution. And, then there are the ethical and legal dimensions of attribution, which range from giving credit where credit is due to copyright and fair use.

Students must wonder about the arcane and seemingly infinite conventions for documenting information and for making their contributions to scholarly knowledge. We know that many students worry about accusations of plagiarism, their anxiety fueled by their uncertainty about their professors’ expectations, how attribution and citation work in an academic context, and how to find their own voices in the process of synthesizing ‘authoritative’ ones through their writing.

This panel will explore the role of attribution in student writing from a variety of perspectives: is there pedagogical value in asking students to adhere to disciplinary conventions for documentation . . . or is it a technical afterthought? What is the nature of our institutional messaging to students about ‘citation,’ ‘academic honesty,’ and ‘plagiarism’? What definitions and structures of expertise and authority do we privilege in our approaches to the role of attribution in student work, and how do these definitions and structures contribute to student learning and to students seeing themselves as experts? How can we use a topic like bibliographic citation and attribution to show students the importance of membership in a community (or communities) of practice?

Panelists

  • Kathryn Byrnes, Director of the Baldwin Center for Learning and Teaching
  • Karen Jung, Music Librarian; Coordinator of Research and Instructional Services
  • Meredith McCarroll, Director of Writing and Rhetoric and of the First Year Seminar Program
  • Katherine O’Grady, Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Community Standards
  • Jessica Perez, THRIVE Director

Moderator

Erin Valentino, Associate Librarian for Research, Instruction, and Outreach

The panel will take place on Friday, February 21, 8:45-10:00 a.m. in Nixon Lounge, H-L Library. COFFEE and a light continental breakfast will be served.

Questions? Please contact Erin Valentino, evalenti@bowdoin.edu.

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