Note: Feel free to click links and check sources! Explore the different methods of citation, which are varied in order to create thought about the efficiency of citation and its current methods.
Plagiarism
Students fear plagiarism (Iris). However, “plagiarism cannot be defined” (Bloch). So what, then do we do when students are punished for “unintentional” (Iris) or “accidental plagiarism” in their work (“What is Common Knowledge?”)? Who exactly defines what it means for information to be ‘common knowledge’? It can be defined as information “likely to be known by a lot of people” (“What is Common Knowledge?”), or it can be “folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends,” etc. (“Is It Plagiarism Yet?”). Is it safe to assume two people know the same folklores? I mean, obviously some things can just be that obvious, like saying that my dress is blue and black. Or wait...maybe was it white and gold (Rogers). Guess what: “‘We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are’” (Vivyan). Common knowledge is itself, to an extent, a myth. Our current way of citing is out-dated and ignores audience experience, which is completely unnecessary in our digital, interactive world.
Now I am not talking about going into complete solipsism here; there are pieces of information that are safe to assume that most people know, like the use of chairs for sitting or the concept of being indoors, etc. Instead, what I am referencing is the large gray area of citation that currently creates unconstructive anxiety in students who spend more of their time checking references than focusing on how to effectively communicate their ideas. Some say that the internet is responsible for increased plagiarism in student papers, because of the virtually unlimited resources that the web provides. Online tools like Turnitin that are used to detect student plagiarism claim to be cutting down on unoriginal work, but in reality have been becoming more and more ineffective at “reducing plagiarism,” and more effective as a scare tactic. Not so shockingly, it has been found that education rather than fear is the more productive way to prevent unoriginal work. When students are better equipped to manage stress, avoid procrastination, and fully utilize their note taking, their chances of copy and pasting from an article decreases. And because this trend of plagiarism does not affect the world of online journals, is it fair to blame the internet?
Credibility
Instead of this situation being about blame and resistance, we should, as an academic body, evolve alongside our technology. There is no denying that the landscape of credibility in citation has changed as everything else has:
Historically, papers have been physically bound to the journal in which they were published; but in the digital age papers are available individually, no longer tied to their respective journals. Hence, papers now can be read and cited based on their own merits, independently of the journal’s physical availability, reputation, or impact factor (IF). (Lozano, Larivière, Gingras 2140).
Our current methods of evaluating credibility, then, are also changing. Does a rabbit hole of hyperlinks constitute as valid connections between information? Is it not a “pointless burden in the age of Google” to stress over each comma, period, and parenthetical insert in a work when anyone who has access to an online article also has access to a plethora of extensive search engines (Fitzpatrick)? Of course, it is important to understand the difference between an opinion piece on a personal blog and a thoroughly researched thinkpiece in a peer reviewed academic journal--ignoring the frequent bias of expensive peer reviewers (Smith). But what is wrong with a hyperlink to wikipedia in an online article to shed some light on a “common knowledge” concept? Although the majority of students find Wikipedia to be an inappropriate source for academic content, supporters argue that “the more more Wikipedia is used and pursued by those seeking knowledge, the more credible entries will become” (Clark). Instead of condemning non-database sources as automatically incredible, we should work to make “credible” information more accessible.
Finally, The Future
While all of these questions are being asked in today’s academic world, there are even more significant changes in the years to come. The issue of referencing artificial intelligence is not one that can be resolved with our current means of citation. There are so many programmers and designers working on one robot or chatbot, so who gets the credit when AI forms a sentence? As Suzanne Murphy questions in the academic journal Hybrid Pedagogy, “Is it proper to credit the algorithm [or] dishonest not to?” This is yet another important question we will be needing to answer in the near future.
Academia must do its part to stay relevant in this fast-paced world of information. Staying in the conversation is important, regardless of how difficult it may be to do so. Citation is an important part of learning and producing knowledge--ideas do not form in a vacuum, but rather they are built upon one another by the brilliant minds across history. It is simply our responsibility, as consumers and contributors to that history, to make those past minds easily accessible to readers of the future.
Readers: What kinds of thoughts and feelings these various citation styles evoke? Contribute to the conversation, leave a comment!
Bloch, Joel. "Review: Howard, Rebecca Moore. (1999). Standing in the Shadow of Giants:
Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators." Colostate.edu. Colorado State University, 30
Nov. 2001. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
Clark, Naeemah. "Trust Me! Wikipedia's Credibility Among College Students."
International Journal of Instructional Media 38.1 (2011): 27-36. Education Source.
Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. "The Future of Academic Style: Why Citations Still Matter in the Age
of Google." Los Angeles Review of Books. 29 Mar. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
Iris. "I Hate Plagiarism." Pegasus Librarian. 16 Nov. 2007. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
"Is It Plagiarism Yet?" Perdue Online Writing Lab. Perdue OWL, 13 Feb. 2013. Web. 20
Mar. 2016.
Lozano, George A., Vincent Larivière, and Yves Gingras. "The Weakening Relationship
Between the Impact Factor and Papers’ Citations in the Digital Age." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62.11 (2012): 2140-145. Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.
Rogers, Adam. "The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress." Wired.
26 Feb. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
Smith, Richard. "Peer Review: A Flawed Process at the Heart of Science and Journals." Journal of the
Royal Society of Medicine 99.4 (2006): 178-82. The National Center for Biotechnology
Information. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.
Vivyan, Carol. "Different Perspectives." GetSelfHelp. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
"What Is Common Knowledge? How to Avoid Accidental Plagiarism." Cam.ac.uk.
University of Cambridge, 6 Aug. 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
Vincent Larivière, and Yves Gingras. "The Weakening Relationship
Between the Impact Factor and Papers’ Citations in the Digital Age." Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology 62.11 (2012): 2140-145.
Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature. Web. 29 Mar. 2