by:
  Michael Donnelly,
  Rebecca Ingalls,
  Tracy Ann Morse,
  Joanna Castner, and
  Anne Meade
  Stockdell-Giesler

  Responsibility for Writing

I have not used Turnitin.com and did not plan to start after this orientation with these new statistics and warnings. As the semester progressed, many first-year writing faculty members began conferring with one another about what they do when they find plagiarism. These discussions raised the issues of whether or not to use and how to use Turnitin.com. While I agree with many of my national colleagues that problems relating to violations of FERPA and to the intellectual property of students (see Foster, 2002 and "Teaching about Plagiarism," 2005), I am considering instituting the use of Turnitin.com.

As a way to settle a conflict between my teaching philosophy and the plagiarism policing being asked of me, I am examining the merits of using Turnitin.com as a tool for revision. I argue that a proactive response to plagiarism, such as class discussions and assignments examining the many complexities and implications of plagiarism combined with students adopting Turnitin.com as a writing tool allows instructors to engage students in responsible academic writing.

My teaching philosophy, in general, asks that students take responsibility for their own learning. Only recently have I been challenged to think of this philosophy and how it applies to my policy of plagiarism. While I recognize that many students, especially freshmen, are unclear what plagiarism is, I have not made it common practice in my teaching repertoire to teach about plagiarism.

In "Responding to Plagiarism," Alice Drum (1986), points out that many instructors neglect examining and working on how not to plagiarize in their delivered curriculum. Drum observes even the rhetoric textbooks we use inform students what plagiarism is in a one-sentence definition and then states a warning not to commit it without providing students exercises to practice ways of avoiding plagiarism (p. 242). As a first-year writing instructor, I argue it is crucial that I teach students about plagiarism and how to avoid it so they can take responsibility for their own writing.

While Turnitin.com advertises on its website to be a plagiarism prevention tool for students, general consensus is that it is used to police plagiarism and nabs those students who are guilty of the offense. Turnitin.com boasts that it is contracted with over 5,000 institutions worldwide, and one report states that "about 400 colleges in the United States [are] on its client list" (Foster, 2002). Rather than using Turnitin.com as a prevention to plagiarism, many instructors rely on it to upload students' final drafts and wait for a report documenting how much of the essays are plagiarized. This method of using Turnitin.com is what was suggested to new faculty at The University of Tampa.

There are multiple problems to this method of use. One mentioned earlier is whether or not students have given consent to their writing becoming part of Turnitin.com's database. Once a student's paper is uploaded to Turnitin.com, that paper is copied to its database that has grown to over 4.5 billion pages (www.turnitin.com, 2005). One way many instructors address students providing consent to their papers becoming part of Turnitin.com's database is by having students submit their own papers to the system that then forwards the report to the instructor.

Another problem is that the system is set up in such a way to not encourage instructors to talk with and examine with students what plagiarism is and why it is important to document all borrowed information - ideas and words. Like other systems designed to evaluate essays, Turnitin.com is not a tool that is used to teach. However, as the discussions at many colleges turn towards plagiarism maybe it is time we look at Turnitin.com as another tool to add to our teaching repertoire as opposed to our grading repertoire. One way Turnitin.com can potentially help students is in focusing on revision.

• Introduction: A Writing Program Director's Dilemma
• Flying, Finally
• The Role of the WPA
• The Problems with PDS
• May the Conversation Continue...
• Dissimulation in the Writing Classroom
• The Devaluing of Growth?
• A Lack of Ethics
• An Ethos of Academic Integrity
• Students Consenting to Turnitin.com: What Are We Asking When We Ask Them to Sign Away Their Work?
• The Concept of Intellectual Property
• Roots of Consent
• Why "Consent" May Not Be Sufficient
• Turnitin.com: A Teaching Tool
• Responsibility for Writing
• A Focus on Revision
• Turnitin: Oversimplified Answer to a Complex Problem
• Skill and Creativity
• Self-Fulfilling Prophesies
• A Stimulus to Creativity
• Engagement and Success
• Conclusion
• References
• print version