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| Hicks (2011)* [Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com]. |
It was by choice that the writing of this article was deferred so as not to taint it with political color. This is definitely not a political article, but rather an open letter to the academe and the judiciary. Hence, instead of “striking while the iron is hot”, the most opportune time to publish is now ... when the smoke is going down.
Scenario 1 vs. Scenario 2
Imagine a scenario where a research consultant was requested to review a master’s thesis prior to conferment of a graduate degree. The consultant was shocked to have found that about half of the first three chapters were plagiarized. When the student was asked to explain his side, he claimed it was not done on purpose since it was simply copy pasted from an online article. Hence, there was absence of malicious intent. He further claimed that he was not aware that copying lines and lines of text in toto constitutes plagiarism because the source was cited. The consultant explained that no quotation marks were seen in the plagiarized portions of the thesis. The committee tasked to resolve the problem at hand decided to be a little lenient with the student, asking him to rework the plagiarized parts of the thesis by paraphrasing. However, since graduation is just a few days away, the student’s graduation was withheld until the end of the following semester.
For the second scenario, an associate justice of the Supreme Court (SC) wrote a decision exonerating the defendant of a high profile case. The counsel of the plaintiff later discovered that the decision contained plagiarized portions, at times even complete paragraphs, from foreign works. The associate justice was brought to court on charges of plagiarism. The accused pleaded not guilty of the charge, on the excuse that his research assistant accidentally deleted the footnotes containing the citations for the plagiarized parts of the decision. The associate justice was cleared in the matter of charges of plagiarism by his peers from the SC, who allegedly did not find malicious intent, and thus, the charges lacked merit.
Rhetorical questions
If the general policy regarding plagiarism for students declare that “the student’s intention is irrelevant – the action of copying text alone indicates plagiarism” (Smith, 2009, p.70). Why should an associate justice be treated more leniently? An associate justice is supposed to be an expert in jurisprudence. Besides, we were thought in school and at home that we should be responsible for our own actions, why can’t the expert judge be more responsible than a student?
Can we handle the truth?
It may be a very unfortunate fact and a very inconvenient truth that a former US Attorney and Appellate Judge, who is now in private practice has this to say about plagiarism in the judicial context:“... a judicial writer cannot commit legal plagiarism because the purpose of his writing is not to create a literary work but to dispose of a dispute between parties”(George. 2007, p. 726). This may be considered as one of the joys of plagiarism – dipping one’s fingers in boiling oil sans the agony of chafing.
Even then, George (2007) also cautioned in the context of ethical practice that judges should properly cite their sources, including law review articles, legal periodicals, judicial decisions, etc. As a personal rule, George (2007) maintained that “...while the judge may unwittingly use the language of a source without attribution, it is not proper even though he may be relieved of the stigma of plagiarism” (p. 726).
George’s (2007) position regarding the immunity of judges from plagiarism was supported by only a quarter of Filipino lawyers consulted for this article [although, this may be developed into a full-blown research if God permits]. The remaining three quarters adhere to the age-old tenet that no one is above the law and that no one is also below it.
Common Knowledge
One possible reason offered by George (2007) for the judges’ rather loose sense of practicing attribution of resources used in their judicial rulings is that their educational preparation and experience, as well as the requisites of their position warrant that only reliable, but time-tested legal theories and concepts are used with the exact wording. This brings to the fore another usually misinterpreted concept related to plagiarism –common knowledge.
As defined in Stepchyshyn and Nelson (2007), a statement regarded as common knowledge “does not need to be attributed to a source” (p. 53). Bothma, Cosijn, Fourie, and Penzhorn (2008 ) ruled that “facts that are likely to be known by many people and can be found in many places” are considered as common knowledge. It is common knowledge that sampaguita is our national flower. But that sampaguita is of Castilian origin and has the scientific name jasminium sambac are facts and their source must be cited [in this case Corriente, 2008 )]. Stepchyshyn and Nelson (2007) maintained that basic facts or common knowledge do not require citation, but interpretation of such facts should always be properly referenced. The common rule of thumb is that if a statement or fact is not common knowledge or if there are doubts whether or not something is common knowledge, the best course of action is to cite the source. This discussion refers to common knowledge for the general public.
There is also common knowledge for specialized audience, like for practitioners of the law. In which case, landmark cases which set standards and/or precedents and hold true with the passage of time may be reasonably considered common knowledge. An example would be Cayetano v. Monsod (1991), which has frequently been cited regarding the legal definition of the practice of law. In reference to Scenario 2, the case rulings were from foreign authors which other justices and lawyers may not really be familiar with. Hence, those may not be considered as common knowledge.
Plagiarism and the Academe
How can the academe discourage plagiarism among students and faculty when everyone knows that is it so easy to commit plagiarism and get away with it? “The decision [i.e. dismissal of plagiarism case against an SC associate justice] has created unimaginable problems for Philippine academia, which will from now on have to find a disciplinary response to plagiarism committed by students and researchers on the justification of the majority decision” (Carpio-Morales, as cited in Rodis, 2010, para. 11).
Law practitioners who were consulted on the matter have varied opinions. One lawyer believes that “the academe can only try to discourage plagiarism but we can’t do anything with it, since plagiarism is the highest form of flattery to the one who authored the work”(R. De Las Alas, personal communication, January 29, 2011*). Another lawyer opined that: “Academic institutions should just implement the policy against plagiarism as an independent mandate. Students should not use the incident as a justification not to follow the school policy against plagiarism” (C. Cordero, personal communication, February 1, 2011*. In a limited context, one lawyer proposed “teaching law students the proper way of annotating or citing their sources from jurisprudence” (S. Salazar, personal communication, February 6, 2011*).
To date, experts from the academe invited to enlighten readers on the matter have yet to send their responses. However, this author, who used to be with the academe and has extensive exposure with undergraduate and graduate student research shares the rather pessimistic views of Carpio-Morales (2010). Prior to the actual events similar to Scenario 2, too many students have not taken plagiarism matters seriously. The problem lies not, however, in the absence of attributions to the source, but perhaps from their assumption that merely citing the reference is enough. Writing researches, theses or dissertations involves ethical responsibility and this starts with the practice of giving credit to other researchers who earlier contributed to the reservoir of knowledge, not by copying text word for word, but by paraphrasing.
Faculty members teaching methods of research are the first line of defense against flagrant plagiarism in the tertiary level. But the faculty members handling other subjects also have important roles to play. Familiarization with the in-text and reference citations in whatever style requires practice. Hence, application of these styles of documentation should be required not only in the course methods of research, but in all other courses in the curriculum.
The copy paste mentality among researchers (and even among judges and justices) should be replaced with ethical responsibility. Let us show to the world that we are “educated” in the strongest essence of the word. There is no semblance of being educated in researches and related material devoid of scholarly practice. One can not be proud of a masterpiece completed by slashing parts of Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, De Goya and Matisse. Plagiarism is a plague and ethical responsibility is the only cure. The university is the best training ground for ethical responsibility – let us rally towards a truly informed society not by stealing lines and lines of text from the Internet. Let us craft our own masterpiece with our unique strokes, notes and texts.
* Emails and other electronic forms of communication are given parenthetical citations but are not included in the reference list in the APA style of documentation.
References
Bothma, T., Cosijn, E., Fourie, I. & Penzhorn, C. (2008 ). Navigating information literacy: your information society survival toolkit. Capetown: Princeton Education.
Cayetano v. Monsod, 100113 PHL 1 (1991). Retrieved from <http://www.chanrobles.com/scdecisions/ jurisprudence1991/sep1991/gr_100113>_1991.php>
Corriente, F. (2008 ). Dictionary of Arabic and allied loanwords: Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Gallician and kindred dialects. Leiden, NDL: Brill.
George, J. J. (2007). Judicial opinion writing handbook (5th ed.). New York: Willian S. Hein & Co.
*Hicks, M. A. (2011). [Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com]. Retrieved from http: //school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/clip/judge.html
Rodis, R. (2010). License to plagiarize. Retrieved from <http://globalnation.inquirer.net/columns/columns/ view/20101021-298952/License-to-plagiarize>
Smith, W. S. (2009). Plagiarism, the Internet and student learning: improving academic integrity. New York: Routledge.
Stepchyshyn, V. & Nelson, R. S. (2007). Library plagiarism policies. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.
How to cite this article in APA format:
Marquez, E. Z. S. (2011). The "joys" of plagiarism: Caveats against the "copy and paste" mentality - Part 2. Retrieved from <http: //essem.webs.com/apps/blog/show/5970895-the-joys-of-plagiarism-caveats-against-the-copy-and-paste-mentality-part-2>
All articles posted in this Website are my original works. References used (when applicable) are properly acknowledged using the APA style of documentation.
