Of Lies and Men (Writing Them, That Is)

I'm still checking papers, and while the general quality of the papers have not really improved, at least I haven't caught anyone trying to pass off other people's ideas as their own. Fellow blogger and academic Brian Belen already discussed plagiarism in the context of the new technologies we use to communicate with other people, and it's worth checking out, if only to click on that link to myself. Ah, vanity! I admit...I have yet to escape your rich, rose scented clutches. At any rate, Brian's observations on academic dishonest are worth revisiting:

Anyone who knows me is well aware that I take a very hard line about plagiarism. If memory serves, in the two years I spent teaching at the University of Asia and the Pacific I caught upwards of twenty cases of plagiarism among my students. Within an academic environment, plagiarism strikes me as a cop-out for laziness rooted in poor values, undoubtedly performed with malice. It doesn't take that much effort to cite a source, and plagiarism belies an intention to deceive, where "submission for submission's sake" or "the need to make the grade" become more important than the learning that underlie such requirements. This is the same point I would try to get across to my students: Have some self-respect. Take pride in your work. And exert the effort to give credit where credit is due.

Brian's remarks on the roots of plagiarism are worth considering to round out Slate's discussion of media ethics in reportage. This article resonated with me not only because of the all-too-real spectre of dishonesty, or the gross disrespect shown one of my favorite essayists, Anne Fadiman, but for the remarkably rational and thoughtful way in which Slate editor Jack Shafer concludes:

Randall's wartime lies remind journalists that if a source's story is too good to be true, it probably isn't. The Sedaris inquiry instructs readers not to become too invested in a personal history that seems too funny, too sad, or too true. And the Schott affair suggests ever so gently that sometimes memory is a liar.

The lesson here, as always, is that honesty is truly the best policy. In the end, the truth will set you free.

I better rest before getting back to checking papers though. The fact that I rattled off two successive clichés doesn't bode well for the quality of my checking.

Picture comes courtesy of Glatt Plagiarism Services, Inc..