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This writing project explores the ideas of plagiarism through an educational podcast
hosted by three friends. The goal of this podcast is to summarize the ongoing discussion so far of
plagiarism, its evolution, relieve confusion as well as relieve confusion about plagiarism, and
what we can do to change the stigma around it. Plagiarism is a relevant issue in academic writing
and this podcast would be able to fix the misconceptions students have with it. This podcast
focuses on the relief of confusion for students as this issue is the most relevant with the academic
writing taught in schools today. This may even be relevant to professional writing in the work
field. Furthermore, a podcast not only is a casual form of communication, but comes from three
students. This perspective allows the audience to feel more connected to the issue as if the
podcast and the hosts were speaking on their behalf. This casual form of information relaying is
the most effective method as its casualty promotes the idea of breaking down the fear and
anxiety around plagiarism and it builds emotional connection with the audience.
The writing process was inspired from the casual conversation of college students. I
imagined a conversation with my friends and translated that into a more formal yet still casual
conversation about plagiarism. There were difficulties with incorporating the sources into the
conversation because of the awkwardness of its placement in the conversation mixed with the
word maximum. There were also difficulties with talking about plagiarism without overstepping
boundaries, but having it not cross the line. I wanted to emphasize the boundary of emphasizing
the faults in plagiarism as defined by our school system and society, but not normalize it or
justify itbut that it is still unacceptable, to be clear. UnfortunatelyHowever, there is a gray area
thatand can be misinterpreted by the audience which opposes the real goalis not the goal.
Overall, there were bumps in the process, but through the research of conversations and adding
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MVN9fmCNU1ffsBwDcxriGqr4kkymn8vK/view?usp=sharing
Podcast Script
Context: Three friends discussing plagiarism on a podcast, only a general outline of what is said
we have to say
Person 1: Welcome back to the writing 101 podcast where we talk about anything and everything
about writing! Just a quick thank you to our listeners for always tuning to our show!
Person 3: Our podcast is biweekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays. We always discuss the latest topic
Person 1: Ok moving on, our first segment for today is…plagiarism. Ok so this is a more
sensitive topic.
Person 3: I remember in high school we had to put all our writing through plagiarism
checkerswebsites. Mine was called turnitin.com. I’m getting chills from even thinking
about it…
acceptable. I remember having to use really short quotes or even choose to paraphrase
Person 3: And sometimes it would say I plagiarized when I literally didn’t. It’s literally giving
me flashbacks because I wouldn’t use many quotes or anything, but it said that I
plagiarized. Honestly it made me super confused, I don’t even know what plagiarism is
anymore.
Person 1: Honestly same, sobut we should turn to some sources. Let's look at what researchers
and professionals have said about it. Maybe we can find a reason why we and other
students have had this experience. Maybe there's been a shift in what plagiarism means in
today's academic world and what the academic system is doing to make this better so
Person 3: Okay okay, I have several articles here and I guess we can scan them as we go and see
how plagiarism has changed and what we can do. Ah! Here we have an article by Ardito.
It seems like Ardito is validating our experience. She says, “Over the years, documented
novelists have been reported.”(Ardito, 2002) but then she goes on to say that, “These
"celebrities" escaped largely unscathed. Once the initial furor died down, all went on to
Person 1: Wait, I feel so validated. I’m just a college student, but the fact that these famous
scholars havedo have a recordsrecord but have been able to learn and grow past that
Person 3: Yeah, there’s a lot less pressure because now it's a mistake everyone can makemore
normalized?. It’s still not good to plagiarize, but it just goes to show how even scholars
can plagiarize. It kind of shows how they unintentionally do it too. I mean we’re all just
Person 1: Wait, Llet’s get one point straight for our listener though: it’s never okay to plagiarize
intending to take credit for their work. We’re just discussing how there’s fault in the
definition. Plus, the way the educational system has made it difficult to understand
Person 1: Ok but what does plagiarizing even mean? Like I feel like we grew up having such a
bad stigma on the word that I don’t even know what it is anymore.
Person 3: Isn’t it just when you use someone else’s work without giving them credit? But I do
Person 1: Right, so we know that plagiarizing with the intent, emphasis on intent, of stealing
someone’s work is definitely not ok, but what about if it was unintentional? Like we
Person 3: This is perfect timing to bring up an article that I’ve been eyeing. It's the one by
Edwards where they highlight a case just like ours where someone didn’t intend to
plagiarize, but was criminalized. They said that, “intentionality is precisely what should
Person 1: That’s actually interesting because another article is stating the same thing. Ercegovac
and Richardson similarly state that many scholars have emphasized the idea of
Person 3: So I guess we are justified in a way that plagiarism isn’t just copying someone’s work,
it’s about what intention we had with it. Additionally, Agwaral states that there are a
“variety of methods where duplicity or piracy can occur” (2020) for plagiarism so this
Person 1: I still think that there needs to be continuous debate because whether or not it was
intentional, their work is still being copied. The lines aren’t super clear.
Person 3: Well I guess it’s more about what plagiarism as a word has in terms of connotation and
defined as copying, but copying with the intention of stealing is plagiarism. So either way
it’s still copying, it's just that plagiarism is only associated with one of them.
Person 1: Where was this definition when I was in school? I wouldn’t have copied anyone
regardless of intention, but it allows me to carry the word properly at least, b. But I guess
definitions like this are always changing. It’s is just sad to see how little performative
action is taking place in schools though. Some of these articles have come out a long time
Person 3: Okay okay, enough negative talk, we need to tell the listeners what we can do to
Person 1: Ok yeah I’ve been looking for an article that provides a solution, we can’t just be
sulking over the problem here. Luckily, I found one that jumpstarts that process of
change. Anson in his article states that, “ Instead of presenting citation policies as if they
were like the laws of physics, teachers need to help students to acquire strategic forms of
knowledge that will allow them to quickly "read" a context” (2010). I do think it would
be useful for teachers to teach students that it’s not just some sort of no plagiarism
Person 3: To further this idea of a different teaching of plagiarism, aApparently, writing outside
of your own style causes more plagiarism and “using alternative writing tasks and
developing rhetorical modes different from the argumentative mode to create a space for
writing that could be more reflective and expressive” (Abasi & Barbara, 2008).
Person 1: Wait so this is all aligning. To get the facts straight, the research is saying that students
that are forced to write outside of their writing style are more likely to plagiarize so
Person 3: Right, and the people that can help us do this are our teachers which brings back what
you said about a switch in the academic guidelines from the teachers. I feel like this is
important because it calls for a whole reformation of what has been taught before and
Person 1: I agree, big changes like this are going to be hard. But, I do think that hopefully people
understand what this change will mean. Our final source here by Wong outlines how
plagiarism goes against academic integrity and doesn’t help us in the long run with
integrity, professionalism, and more (2016). So basically, for the whole society it's a good
change.
Person 3: Yup, there are only good things that will happen, plus there won’t be students like us
who had to go through the anxiety of using turnitin.com. Gosh, I’m still getting chills
from that.
Person 1: I do think there needs to be more research done. I feel like in modern society, we lack a
lot of originality because it feels like everything has been done already. I feel like this can
Person 3: Hopefully it’ll also help the young scholars out there better their writing and their
professional life…well, I guess that’s all we have to say for plagiarism. It’s everywhere,
but confusing and of course we still don’t even know what it really means.
Person 1: As the conversation continues and society progresses, we’ll be able to see what
happens.
Person 3: Well, that ends this segment about plagiarism, We’ll take a short ad break and we’ll be
right back!
Works Cited
Abasi, Ali R.; Barbara Graves. (2008). Academic literacy and plagiarism: Conversations with
Agrawal. (2020). Plagiarism. Indian Journal of Pathology & Microbiology, 63(2), 175–176.
https://doi.org/10.4103/0377-4929.282724
Anson, Chris; Shawn Neely. (2010). The army and the academy as textual communities:
Ardito, Stephanie C. (2002). Plagiarism, fabrication, and lack of attribution: The misuse of
(July-August), 16-18.
Edwards. (2003). What a Tangled Web: Teachers, Students, and the Knot of Plagiarism in the
Ercegovac, Zorana; John V. Richardson, Jr. (2004). Academic dishonesty, plagiarism included, in
the digital age: A literature review. College and Research Libraries 65.4, 301-318.
Wong, Lim, S. W. H., & Quinlan, K. M. (2016). Integrity in and Beyond Contemporary Higher
1094–1094. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01094