Assignments

Research assignments were given out in class last week. Our professor split us up into three groups, each of us researching a different part of plagiarism:

1. Why is it happening?
2. Repercussions
3. Solutions

With these three researched topics, each group will compose a long article going into detail about what they found in journals and government resources, as well as what they find in interviews.

My group is researching solutions to the problem. What can be done to prevent plagiarism from even happening in the first place? What can professors and students do?

But this is very complicated. What I really want to find out--and hope I can get the assistance from other students in the class is: can plagiarism ever really be stopped? There are professors and universities out there that stress plagiarism as a bigger deal than other schools. I discovered that from my research some universities and schools require professors to address plagiarism several times throughout their course, not just offhandedly on the syllabus like most professors do here at Assumption. Is that why this is a growing problem on this campus--because professors don't address the issue well enough? So then, is it the professor's fault when a student plagiarizes in his/her class?

The questions are endless. I also found articles devoted to just the definition of plagiarism and how fuzzy that term is. Each university has their own way of dealing with the issue. Could we even go so far as to instigate a national punishment for plagiarism? Now that's certainly a big thought...

I hope that I find that some of these solutions are working through my research, and perhaps pass the word on to the administration here.

Maybe plagiarism is preventable.

But then again, maybe the human race is just getting lazier and lazier every day...