Teaching in Higher Education

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Conceptualising plagiarism: using Lego to

construct students' understanding of authorship
and citation

Carina Buckley

To cite this article: Carina Buckley (2015) Conceptualising plagiarism: using Lego to construct
students' understanding of authorship and citation, Teaching in Higher Education, 20:3, 352-358,
DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2015.1016418

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Published online: 11 Mar 2015.

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Teaching in Higher Education, 2015
Vol. 20, No. 3, 352–358, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1016418

Conceptualising plagiarism: using Lego to construct students’

understanding of authorship and citation
Carina Buckley*

Library and Learning Services, Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK

(Received 7 July 2014; final version received 12 January 2015)

The transition from further to higher education is marked by a series of challenges for
the new student, not least the requirement to learn the discourse of academic practice,
and referencing as a part of that. By perceiving what it means to reference, students
should also come to understand what it means to write, including the problematic
areas of authorship and ownership of ideas. Academic writing and paraphrasing are
demanding concepts that require the student writer to enter into the academic
discourse and relinquish their hold on the worlds of a text and embrace instead the
argument behind them, in a form of ‘language-game’. Taking an interpretative,
dialogic approach to referencing, the inherent playfulness of learning is emphasised
through the use of Lego, used as a metaphor for the students’ construction of meaning
and to exemplify the discipline of citation and attribution. This paper outlines a
method that metaphorically and literally enables students to construct and make visible
the underlying theoretical philosophy of referencing and plagiarism by using Lego as
a mode of authorship, in the context of the nature of academic discourse and what it
means to write. In addition, the personal, engaging nature of the activity meant that it
would be a more memorable activity too.
Keywords: referencing; paraphrasing; academic writing; authorship; plagiarism;
citation

Plagiarism can be a contested word in higher education, carrying troublesome

implications for academic writing and the use of sources. Although referencing is
commonly focused on by teaching staff as a way of addressing the question of
intentionality inherent within a model of plagiarism-as-cheating, it is the related aspects
of authorship and ownership of texts that usually cause the greatest confusion for students
(Pecorari 2008). Referencing, as a mechanical process outlined in university study skills
materials and academic misconduct-related guidance, is not difficult in itself. However,
understanding when and how to apply it, within the paradigm of academic writing (which
may, as a subject, not be taught as such at all), can leave students at risk in a grey area of
misconduct. In addition, the focus on plagiarism and punishment loads the task with
anxiety, yet overlooks the foundation of good academic practice: the sharing and
attribution of ideas in order to develop and create something novel.
To teach referencing effectively, in a way that helps students understand what
plagiarism is and to avoid it in their own texts, means in practice to teach paraphrasing
and the fundamental nature of academic writing: elements such as critical objectivity,

*Email: carina.buckley@solent.ac.uk
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
 Teaching in Higher Education 353

argumentation and explication, and, central to this discussion, intertextuality (Borg 2008).
The conceptual understandings of authorship and ownership are therefore crucial to the
production of an academic text, which is itself recognised as such by its foundation and
reliance on the published works of others. This paper thus combines the two theoretical
strands of active learning – engaging learners through all senses that they may construct
their own understanding (Cottrell 2008; Michael 2006; Prince 2004) and authorship,
taking Foucault’s definition (1977, 124) of the ‘[characterisation of] the existence,
circulation and operation of certain discourses within a society’. Together they combine
to outline a method that metaphorically and literally enables students to construct and
make visible the underlying theoretical philosophy of referencing and plagiarism by using
Lego as a mode of authorship, in the context of the nature of academic discourse and
what it means to write.
In my role as Learning Skills Tutor at a post-1992 university I took an active learning
approach in teaching this more holistic approach to referencing and authorship with three
seminar groups of first year students taking Fashion-related degrees. These students’
courses all have a strong practical basis and involved little writing, accounting for 20 out
of 120 credits for the year; consequently, many of these students do not consider
themselves to be either ‘good writers’ or confident in their writing ability. Feedback from
their tutor on their first assignment had indicated a concern about their referencing
proficiency, generally as a group, but crucially in the sense that they appeared to have
failed to grasp the underlying principles of paraphrasing rather than attempting to engage
in intentional avoidance of referencing or even exhibiting a mechanical, processual
problem, which the tutor had already attempted to address. Since paraphrasing consists
largely of the student’s own words, that writing is considered to ‘belong’ to them and thus
is presented within the student text absent any citation. However, where the tutor sees
plagiarism, the student sees ‘their’ words, a legitimate piece of academic writing. As
such, the session was designed to unlock the conceptual reasoning behind the tutor’s
feedback with the prime objective of explicating the connection between citations in the
text and paraphrasing, and in doing so, the role of the author within this textual matrix.
Since this session took place early in their first year of undergraduate study, this
was the first time I had met these students, so expectations were open and would
require careful management in order for the session to be a success. In addition, Grösser
(2007, 41) sets out the ‘learning functions’ that mediate the linked domains of teaching
and learning, including motivation, prior knowledge, evaluation, synthesis, interpretation
and application, which would all be addressed in the session. They arrived in their
seminar room to see eight small cups and boxes, each a different colour, on the tables.
Each was filled with an assortment of Lego pieces, including standard bricks and
more unusual items such as windows, roof tiles and wheels. Altogether there were around
200–250 pieces available, ranging from the very smallest pieces up to larger, more
substantial pieces, and these were distributed randomly between the cups and boxes. The
students’ interest was piqued as they realised what the containers held, and one or two
voiced surprise, wondering aloud what Lego had to do with referencing. However, every
participant engaged in the task and followed the instructions given. They were asked to
make an animal or creature, either real or mythical or imaginary, as they saw fit, with the
following provisos: they had to use at least 10 pieces of Lego; those pieces had to come
from at least three different containers; and they were not permitted to empty the
containers onto the table. They had a maximum of ten minutes in which to complete
the task.
354 C. Buckley

During that time the class was lively with comparison and exchanges of bricks and
opinions. The majority of these opinions formed critique of other participants’ efforts,
following progress and guessing at what was or was to be represented. The choice of and
access to certain pieces was more important to some, particularly those who had decided to
create something more true to life, such as a blue shark, a yellow giraffe or a black and white
penguin. Others concentrated more on shape over colour and chose pieces on the basis of
their form. Over the duration of the activity, nobody asked what relation it bore to
referencing, although when asked about this point afterwards, one participant said that he
had wondered but not enough to ask, as he was enjoying the activity too much. The novelty
of the task prompted the whole class to complete it and complete it well (Bligh 1998).
What was it that made this task so engaging? While Barnett (1997, cited in
Brockbank and McGill 2007, 49) calls for attention to be paid to the active and emotional
aspects of learning as part of a ‘critical being’, Mann’s (1996, 448) identification of
‘“play flow”, a willing suspension of disbelief’, is a useful idea for explaining and
understanding this high level of engagement. Play is encouraged in children for giving
space to experimentation and exploration within a risk-free, alternative world, but is less
acceptable in adults, who generally play as a means to an end (Mann 1996, 448–449).
However, the benefits that children accrue are just as valuable in adults, under the same
circumstances. That is, play should be purposeful and process-based, not outcome-driven,
and involve active participation. In this setting, learning is made possible and encouraged
through the symbolic and meaningful aspects of the play, and also driven by the intrinsic
motivation that comes from any voluntary, pleasurable activity (Mann 1996, 447). Since
the Lego task was pleasurable and active, it provided a gateway towards meaningful
learning, which cannot happen without engagement. Play is also structured and rule-
governed, which helped to move the students on to the next phase of the session.
At the end of the 10 minutes, the task was brought to a close and the finished products
admired by all. A number of participants took photos of their own and peers’ animals;
some had indeed made excellent use of the resources available, and all showed a lot of
variety. In addition, all had followed the guidelines given. The animals were left on the
desks in front of them, occasionally modified casually over the rest of the session. The
class now formally ‘began’, with a reminder that we were going to discuss referencing.
The students were presented with two pieces of text: one was an extract from a book, and
the other was how that extract had been used in a fictitious student’s essay. The group
were asked to decide whether they thought the student’s version was an example of word-
for-word plagiarism, paraphrasing plagiarism (whereby a source is paraphrased but
not acknowledged in the text) or not plagiarism at all, with the stipulation that they should
not worry if they were not sure. Despite the fact that much of the ‘student’ extract was
a direct copy of the first, if slightly rearranged, and without an in-text citation, the class
was split between those who thought it was paraphrasing plagiarism, and those – the
majority – who did not think it was plagiarism at all. The second exemplar did in
fact show paraphrasing plagiarism but this time, as the words were different and despite
the lack of an in-text citation, the class unanimously agreed that it did not show
plagiarism at all.
There are a number of issues at work here. First, the students failed to recognise the
relationship between the in-text citation and the reference list, particularly when paraphras-
ing was involved. Paraphrasing is essentially a dialogic activity, opening up a text to new
readings and meanings and thereby capturing ‘hybridity’ and ‘internally persuasive
discourse’ (Lillis 2003, 198). However, in lacking quotation marks, paraphrasing therefore
 Teaching in Higher Education 355

also lacks the element of authority; the student instead needs to recognise the potential for
knowledge to be constructed and used, or repurposed, with ‘a range of possible truths and
interpretations’ (Lillis 2003). A student essay, like any text, is thus ‘a multidimensional
space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash’ (Barthes 1977,
146) and is thereby directed at creating novel constructions, a ‘reconceptualisation’
(Pecorari 2008, 95) of the original texts. Unfortunately, academic writing as structured
and practised by many student writers tends to be seen instead as monologic, merely
‘[reproducing] official discourses’ in a single voice (Lillis 2003, 194) and the sense of
dialogue with the texts is lost. In consequence, the importance of in-text citations in
signalling to the reader the existence of this dialogue is misunderstood, devalued or ignored.
Second, the authority of the words used was paramount. Biggs (1988, 189–191)
recognises a dichotomy in writing genres between those based on the presentation of facts
and ideas (‘knowledge-telling’), and those where the student takes a more metacognitive,
cyclical slant (‘reflective writing’). In the former, a student writer’s focus on their role as
a conveyor of knowledge may prevent them from considering interpretations beyond the
original words. It is only when a student writer becomes able to explore ideas and
arguments within the discourse that Biggs’s ‘reflective writing’ can emerge, to the benefit
of both reader and writer. By concentrating on the words used instead of the knowledge
conveyed, the student writer can lose sight of this more social, nuanced, reader-oriented
construct and risk charges of academic misconduct on the basis of ‘patchwriting’
(Howard cited in Sutherland-Smith 2008, 25) and the unacknowledged appropriation of
ideas.
Patchwriting is the outcome of the lack of ‘authorial voice’ (Sutherland-Smith
2008, 32), characteristic of monologic writing, and anxiety over the authority of the
literature (Pecorari 2008). Nevertheless it can provide a space for the student to test out
the grounds of the discourse and begin to integrate the literature into their own writing
purpose. Many students have difficulty with the need for originality in their writing in the
sense of creating ‘something that did not previously exist’ (Carroll 2007, 17), with the
result that often their work is then carried out the ‘wrong’ way round: instead of reading
to form an opinion, students look for quotes to ‘back up’ what they want to say. It is only
by focusing on the centrality of the argument, rather than the presentation of parts of the
original texts, that the student can take ownership of their own writing and see it as
something unique that offers a new interpretation to the reader.
Returning to the activity at the close of the discussion attention was directed back to
the Lego animals. The class were invited to admire a particularly imaginative one, of
which its creator was very proud. I pointed to a plain, unremarkable yet central piece and
asked the student which pot it had come from. The student could not identify the specific
pot and so I took it from the construction, breaking it in the process (to horrified gasps
from the rest of the class). I informed the student that if they could not say where a piece
had come from, they could not use it in their creation. Moving on, the second student
questioned thus quickly learned that the integrity of their creature was at risk if they gave
a vague answer, as did the third and the fourth, but on very few occasions were able to
recall the exact pot from where they had retrieved the piece under scrutiny. In each class
one or two students had grown so attached to their animal that they refused to take part in
the exercise as they knew they could not provide the requested information, and their
wishes were respected, in what could perhaps be described as an example of tacit
plagiarism. The point was made, initially by the students and then confirmed by me, that
anything that is used in the creation of something new must be ‘referenced’ in the sense
356 C. Buckley

that the source is acknowledged regardless of how the piece or the information is used.
The animal is the product of several different pieces, put together in novel ways, but
despite their appropriation into something unique, they yet require reference to their
origin.
Essays and Lego animals are not equal entities and so it would be erroneous to infer
too much of a relationship between them; for example, what is an idea? How can a unit of
knowledge be represented? However, the principle of the activity, and the one which the
students reached independently, is that however material is used, it is important to
identify the sources and situate them within the text. Academic writing emphasises
dialogue between authors, a dialogue which allows for novel constructions through
paraphrasing. The students themselves began to construct this conceptual understanding
through the activity. Whether the Lego animal represents, like an essay, a ‘hybridity’ of
ideas, or whether it is itself its own concept, it is nevertheless the product of a ‘language-
game’ (Wittgenstein 1967) of sorts, an outcome of play which is symbolic.
Wittgenstein’s (1967) language-games act as sources of meaning, illustrating and
exemplifying, in his example, the use of a word that we may learn its meaning, rather
than guessing at its meaning from definitions. The criteria of how something is used thus
underpin the concept underlying that thing, a transaction he considered to be equally
balanced (Wittgenstein 1967, 83). Learning is compared by Wittgenstein (1967, 15) to
entering a ‘strange country’, whereby meaning is built up through definitions of words or
terms and their application and use. These ‘language-games’ show the meanings in
action, so that we as writers can move from ‘merely tracing round the frame through
which we look at it’ to our goal, ‘tracing the outline of the thing’s nature’ (Wittgenstein
1967, 48). Seeing and applying concepts in practice is, for him, equivalent to
understanding the concept itself, and so it is with academic writing generally and
paraphrasing in particular: seeing and applying paraphrasing in practice is akin to
understanding the concept behind paraphrasing. In this activity, Lego acted as a form of
‘outward criteria’, as did the textual exemplars, and both reflected and supported the
‘inner process’ of dialogue (Wittgenstein 1967, 153). Following the breaking of the
animals, and a discussion around the importance of acknowledging the sources of ideas
even when used in novel constructions, a third piece of text and its use in a piece of
student writing was submitted for comparison. It was an example of paraphrasing
plagiarism; as previously, lacking the in-text citation that would signal the academic
conversation contained therein. Over 80% of the group identified it as such, most of the
comments and reasons given pointing to the use of an idea without acknowledgement.
When a fourth example, that of an instance of word-for-word plagiarism, was given,
every member of the class recognised it as such.
The session achieved its goal of concretising for students some of the concepts around
academic writing, principally paraphrasing, by scaffolding meaning (Marton 1988)
through language-games and opening up writing to dialogue. It was clearly a memorable
lesson. I next encountered these groups a year later, during a series of classes on
structuring arguments. When questioned what they remembered about the class (apart
from the Lego, which was consistently the first thing mentioned), every member of the
group replied that when writing an essay, they could not use an idea if they did not say
where it was from. Another student reported in her personal blog (Stopporton 2012) that
she had found it an interesting and engaging way to remember the significance of
referencing. The conflation by this student of referencing and paraphrasing is important
only in the sense that paraphrasing brings additional problems which this class did not set
 Teaching in Higher Education 357

out to address (such as vocabulary breadth); what it aimed to do, and according to
feedback from students and external examiners achieved in doing, was to make visible
the discourses around authorship and authority beyond the limits of the text, and privilege
meaning as a part of academic practice.
Lego is used here in a novel approach to a common problem. Nevertheless, the
problem itself is not the obvious one. Difficulties with referencing are likely to be shared
by students in every higher education institution (HEI) but that difficulty is not simply the
process of citing and referencing. Instead it is more conceptual, and as such can only be
addressed by acknowledging referencing as just one aspect of academic writing. For the
new student, unfamiliar with their role as a writer, published texts hold a higher status
than information or ideas, as being something tangible and authoritative, and therefore
paraphrasing is overlooked or poorly performed in favour of a reliance on quotes and the
specific words presented in the original text. Effective academic writing depends instead
upon entering into the multiplicity of the discourse by representing and constructing
knowledge in novel ways. Using Lego as outlined here makes this conceptualisation of
thinking and writing perceptible: creating something new and original depends on
contributions from elsewhere and an idea is represented physically; it becomes something
seen. By representing paraphrasing in this way, the underpinning movement from facts to
knowledge is rendered visible and the student writer can become an author, relinquishing
a sense of ownership of words – their own and others – and instead embracing the
broader context of the academic discourse.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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