Crime and punishment: An analysis of university plagiarism policies
-
Wendy Sutherland-Smith
Abstract
Over decades, plagiarism in academic writing has been viewed as a serious issue of academic integrity within educational institutions. Universities are increasingly investing time and capital in raising plagiarism awareness and investigating measures to detect and deter plagiarism. Many tertiary institutions appear to adopt legal and quasi-legal interpretations of criminal law in their plagiarism management practices and policies (Sutherland-Smith, Journal of English for Academic Purposes 4: 83–95, 2005, Plagiarism, the Internet and academic writing: Improving academic integrity, Routledge, 2008). In this paper, semiotic analysis of discourse (Danesi and Perron, Analyzing cultures: An introduction and handbook, Indiana University Press, 1999; Danesi, Messages, signs and meanings: A basic textbook in semiotics and communication theory, Canadian Scholars Press, 2004, The quest for meaning: A guide to semiotic theory and practice, University of Toronto Press, 2007) is used to explore notions of fairness and justice in the language of university plagiarism policies. Through examination of the plagiarism policies of twenty “top” universities across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, I argue that, in some cases, approaches to plagiarism management do not appear consistent with outward appearances of justice and fairness. In fact, policies and processes bear closer resemblance to punitive legal outcomes than the broader ethical approaches usually associated with concepts of justice and fairness. Rethinking plagiarism management in terms of ethically responsible relationships within institutional processes and policies is closer to societal notions of justice and a more educationally sustainable practice, which should be reflected in the discourse of university plagiarism policies and processes.
© 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Blending in mathematics
- Film as specific signifying practice: A rational reconstruction of Stephen Heath's “On screen, in frame: Film and ideology”
- Quarantine
- An inconvenient truth? Can a film really affect psychological mood and our explicit attitudes towards climate change?
- Crime and punishment: An analysis of university plagiarism policies
- The materiality of discourses and the semiotics of materials: A social perspective on the meaning potentials of written texts and furniture
- Reading movies as interactive messages: A proposal for a new method of analysis
- Fame and politics: The persuasive poetics of leadership
- Cosmos and creativity: Man in an evolving universe as a creative, aesthetical agent — some Peircean remarks
- Nonwestern semiotics and its possible impact on the composition of semiotics theory in the future
- IT terminology, translation, and semiotic levels: Cultural, lexicographic, and linguistic problems
- Formation of interpretants in Roentgen semiotics
- Automation of the linguistic translation processes: A study on viability
- An excess of signification: Or, what is an event?
- The illustration of beauty: Super-exposed in the U.S., veiled in Iran
- A novel semio-mathematical technique for excavating themes out of group dynamics
- Compound constructions: Waterproof three-storey brick and tile fire stations?
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Blending in mathematics
- Film as specific signifying practice: A rational reconstruction of Stephen Heath's “On screen, in frame: Film and ideology”
- Quarantine
- An inconvenient truth? Can a film really affect psychological mood and our explicit attitudes towards climate change?
- Crime and punishment: An analysis of university plagiarism policies
- The materiality of discourses and the semiotics of materials: A social perspective on the meaning potentials of written texts and furniture
- Reading movies as interactive messages: A proposal for a new method of analysis
- Fame and politics: The persuasive poetics of leadership
- Cosmos and creativity: Man in an evolving universe as a creative, aesthetical agent — some Peircean remarks
- Nonwestern semiotics and its possible impact on the composition of semiotics theory in the future
- IT terminology, translation, and semiotic levels: Cultural, lexicographic, and linguistic problems
- Formation of interpretants in Roentgen semiotics
- Automation of the linguistic translation processes: A study on viability
- An excess of signification: Or, what is an event?
- The illustration of beauty: Super-exposed in the U.S., veiled in Iran
- A novel semio-mathematical technique for excavating themes out of group dynamics
- Compound constructions: Waterproof three-storey brick and tile fire stations?
