Copyright issues and The "P" word

Plagiarism issues come from: not broaching the subject early, confusion, and the changing nature of the legal question. Maybe also students are lured into a false sense of unaccountability by teachers who don't call them on it. Sometimes if you ignore problems, they go away (or become someone else's problem). Students believe a blase treatment of citations is standard practice (good question). Then you get an instructor who takes citations seriously. The prof. sees violations as an insult, "What! Do you take me for a fool?" he, or possibly she, ruminates. Accusations fly....

Some English teachers downplay or ignore the issue out of fear we are abusing our authority, but schools ARE holding students accountable for downloading media - with arguably draconian punishments. How is it different? How is it the same? Or is it as they say in Tinglish, "same same, but different. " More on that in a podcast to come.

My advice: chill. With common sense (if you aren't trying to game me) there won't be problems. Just be conscientious and cover your assets.

Start with these awesome animated videos produced by Rutgers U. They are fun, short and amazingly informative.

• Video - - what is plagiarism
• video - - plagiarism real life examples
• video - - anti plagiarism gameshow