One of the most frustrating things you face when you teach English is seeing students plagiarise. The irony, however, is that plagiarism might be underestimated as a technique when considering what happens in some classrooms. But first, let's stop and ask, what is plagiarism? What do you need to be able to plagiarise? Some skills are surely involved. One skill that comes to mind is the ability to use a search engine as a tool for research on a given topic. As minor as it may sound, it's still considered a skill. A plagiariser is usually expected to use the search engine for its primary purpose: to search for information. What skills are required in this action of searching? I would say at least, the ability to select (hopefully critically) information from a specific source and not the other. The plagiariser chooses that specific piece of writing over the other to 'steal' because they can see that perhaps it is the most relevant to their topic or the closest to their linguistic abilities. Even though they are misused, those are still skills. In other words, regardless of the obvious fact that this is still considered an academic offence, there is nevertheless, a certain level of critical thinking in the process.
One of the most frustrating things you face when you teach English is seeing students plagiarise. The irony, however, is that plagiarism might be underestimated as a technique when considering what happens in some classrooms. But first, let's stop and ask, what is plagiarism? What do you need to be able to plagiarise? Some skills are surely involved. One skill that comes to mind is the ability to use a search engine as a tool for research on a given topic. As minor as it may sound, it's still considered a skill. A plagiariser is usually expected to use the search engine for its primary purpose: to search for information. What skills are required in this action of searching? I would say at least, the ability to select (hopefully critically) information from a specific source and not the other. The plagiariser chooses that specific piece of writing over the other to 'steal' because they can see that perhaps it is the most relevant to their topic or the closest to their linguistic abilities. Even though they are misused, those are still skills. In other words, regardless of the obvious fact that this is still considered an academic offence, there is nevertheless, a certain level of critical thinking in the process.
