Cheating is wrong, but what about shortcuts?
Collaboration: Nearly half of girls and more than a third of boys who go online report e-mailing or instant messaging classmates or teachers about schoolwork, according to a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. Don McCabe, a national expert on student cheating, said he commonly hears about one student doing an assignment then e-mailing friends a copy. Since many teachers encourage group work during class, they need to be clear when it's not OK on homework, he advised.
Lack of understanding: By high school, most students have heard the plagiarism spiel, said Lake Washington High School teacher Lis Christiansen. But they figure it's OK if they change a couple words. "I have to explain that even copying someone's ideas or the way they phrase something can be plagiarism," she said. "I tell them that if there's ever even a question, just cite it."
Study aids: At the beginning of each year, Christiansen discourages study guides such as CliffsNotes and Monarch Notes, warning students they risk unconsciously "assimilating ideas and phrases." She considers this plagiarism because she doesn't allow citations or quotes from the guides. "They can distract kids from thinking their own thoughts on a piece of writing," she said.
It's up to teachers to articulate their policy, McCabe agreed. "If kids read the book and use guides for extra assistance and the teacher didn't say they couldn't — it's a tough call." What's clearly wrong is reading a guide instead of the book, he said.
Homework sites: Say a teacher asks students to find examples of different types of figurative language in poetry. A student can go to AOL's homework site (hh.channel.aol.com), for example, and get specific lines from Robert Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" showing personification and metaphor.
It's not plagiarism, but how much knowledge is the student getting? If other kids are doing it, parents wonder if they're old-fashioned sticklers for making kids actually read poetry. Agreeing that it's a fuzzy area, McCabe recommends asking teachers to clarify their expectations.
Stephanie Dunnewind, Seattle Times staff reporter
