Discrediting the fine art of copy-paste
How teachers can help their learners to develop academic skills for their studies rather than adopt “copy-paste” practices
In a
digital era when information is abundant, easily accessible, stored, reproduced
and retrieved without effort, there is a thin line between breaching copyright
rules – plagiarism in academic language- and synthesizing information to
produce one’s own intellectual work.
Copying and
pasting text indiscriminately is
reaching epidemic levels and even respectable members of the academic community are often
found guilty of succumbing to the temptation. What exactly do we mean by plagiarism though?
Plagiarism
(noun): the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit
to that person: the act of plagiarizing something
Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary
How is this relevant to English language classes and teaching young
learners and teenagers?
I still
remember the day when my 4th graders in primary school walked triumphantly into the
classroom to share their projects with their classmates. It was the very
first year that the school had introduced the 1:1 approach (1 tablet to 1
student) and the learners had just mastered –or so they claimed – the basics of
powerpoint in order to present their projects digitally with the aid of a data
projector. Classmates and teacher, we all waited impatiently to see the first
outcome.
Impressive
graphics and slide transitions captured our attention until the slides with text
appeared. Long texts infested with scientific terms, completely
incomprehensible to the class and even
to the presenters who attempted to read them aloud to a bunch of students who were bored
to tears as there was nothing they could relate to. It is easy to predict the
chaos that followed with disillusioned presenters and an audience that felt the
presenter had wasted their time by just copying and pasting text instead of
sharing knowledge with them.
Can I deal with it?
A multi-faceted approach seems to work better. The earlier
a teacher starts raising awareness in class, the better it is. Then one should help learners to develop text attack skills, show them how to do some basic research and
paraphrase and finally, give them the opportunity to practise what they have learned through projects.
Show them the path
Before
assigning a project, spend time in class to show them the steps they should
follow to collect information and synthesize what they have found in a coherent
and concise presentation that is suitable for their target audience.
Here is what I tried with a CEFR A1 level
class who had to create a fact file for their favourite wild animal:
1.
We
browsed in class Wikipedia (you can try any other reference site you consider
safe and reliable) and chose a wild animal, a lion.
 |
| Source: Wikipedia |
2.
They
skimmed the text and then asked them what they can understand from the text.
The answer was “nothing” or “next to nothing”. Then I elicited “If you copy and
paste the text like that (show them the text displayed on Wikipedia) , will
anybody in class understand you?” The answer was obvious and the learners
realized they had to work in a different way.
 |
| Match the words with the same meaning |
3.
I
elicited key words for the data they need such as food, how long they live,
length, weight, place they live, and give them the formal equivalents used in
the text. For example, habitat, diet, predators etc. For other projects, you can ask them to
create a brief outline with key words that will enable them to find relevant
information.
 |
| Source: Wikipedia |
4.
I
asked them to scan the text and find relevant information for each category
i.e. habitat, food.
5.
I
elicited the relevant information from the class and clarified that not all the
text should be stored. Only the data necessary for their project. Ask them to
save the information they have found in a M.S. Word file or any other similar
word processor they use.
6.
I
also asked them to write down the source.
7.
Students
worked in pairs to select the information they needed for the presentation and
created the slides.
8.
Then, they checked their presentation for any words they classmates may not know. I urged
them to use only a few new words and explain them to their audience during
their presentation.
9. I encouraged them to use short sentences with
key words or figures on their slides.
10. I
asked them to present in class and I invited the audience to give the
presenters feedback and in particular how original they thought the
presentation is.
11. Finally, I praised the presenters if they mentioned the source and used language
suitable for the level of the audience.
Tips and hints
ü Don’t preach against plagiarism.
They will only be tempted to try it.
ü Focus on the main weakness of
copy-paste is that it is often irrelevant or too wordy. Students fear their
peers’ rejection so they will be open to suggestions on how to improve their
presentations.
ü “Sign” a contract with students, set
clear guidelines on how to use technology and elicit copy-paste is simply
unacceptable.
ü Encourage students to mention
sources and praise them in class when they do so.
ü Give bonus points to work that mentions
sources and penalty points to material which is clearly copied and pasted.
For a
generation brought up with social media and computer games, the visual element
tends to be the priority when it comes to presentation. To them it is only
natural to focus on eye-catching images, animation or videos and in most cases,
it is only the teacher who can guide them on how to find data, select material and synthesize it
to address a specific audience. You need to help them shift from the “surface”
to the content of the project or presentation. If the project is marked give
two marks: one for the presentation and a separate one for content.
For older
students, who hand in projects, there is a large number of free software tools
that can help you detect plagiarism and raise awareness. The following article
can give you a pretty good idea of some free tools that can detect plagiarism:
Why deal with it?
“Plagiarism
annuls any benefits reaped from webquests and the wealth of resources available
on the internet since students are highly unlikely to learn anything from the
work they have copied. It also breaches the ethics of the academic community
that gives credit to the work of colleagues. Therefore, the damage caused by
this practice is multiple. It comes as no surprise that when students have to
use sources and provide references at a university course are often at a loss.
“ (ELT News, 2015)
Some closing thoughts
Some of you
may be wondering why you should allocate some precious class time into it. By
devoting part of a lesson or a whole lesson to prevent plagiarism and encourage analysis
and synthesis, you are not wasting precious time – as some teachers may claim –
but you are laying the foundation stone for autonomous learners who use their
critical and creative thinking skills.
Dimitris Primalis
References
Primalis,
D. Discrediting the fine art of c(l)opy-paste, ELT News, August 2015
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