The Honor Committee last night considered a possible supplement to its "green book," the Committee's handbook that defines its policies and procedures, that would further detail and define plagiarism and paraphrasing.
The proposal was first brought forth by J.J. Litchford, vice chair for community relations, during the Committee's Sept. 20 meeting, and since then has gone through certain editions, said Litchford, who created the latest version of the supplement.
The supplement states that it "is designed to elaborate on one element of cheating, plagiarism, with a particular emphasis on one kind of plagiarism, paraphrasing without citation to the original source" and when the expression used is "distinctive to your original source, without the use of quotations."
It provides a variety of examples and explanations to convey this information, which have changed since the supplement was first introduced.
"The supplement is designed to be more enlightening on exactly what paraphrasing is," Litchford said. "It's a very tricky subject sometimes to tell what is and what is not [paraphrasing], so we have consulted various sources and professors to codify it the best we can."
Litchford said though it is often assumed people will know paraphrasing "when they see it," recent concerns and cases have shown "that really doesn't work for educating students."
Committee Chair David Truetzel said one of the main reasons why he supports the supplement is "because ... it does a good job of explaining what plagiarism is" and helps to make sure that the definition is "crystal clear."
Some Committee members, however, raised concerns about the supplement's material and definitions.
One concern raised by Graduate Rep. Alexander Cohen was in regards to close paraphrasing, in which the words used by a student may be very similar to that of the source and they have cited the source but did not use quotation marks.
Under the new proposal, it is plagiarism if the reader can "match your words and phrasing with those of your source," even if the paraphrase has been cited. The supplement states that a student normally should "err on the side of attribution and quotation marks if you want to avoid plagiarism."
One example Cohen presented in which this could be an issue though is when a Law student cites a case, and they use the words of the judge very closely with an attribution but do not use quotations.
Litchford responded that although there are certain situations in which a student may "use a couple of words in a row that you didn't think were distinct" but actually are, overall the section deals with a much larger and "fundamental piece of paraphrasing."
Another concern raised by Engineering Rep, Yi Cai was the supplement's length, which includes several explanations and examples. Cai noted that these explanations and examples are too long and could ultimately result in students failing to fully read the material.
Litchford said while he definitely understands the concern, it would be "very difficult" to try and condense the information. Instead, Truetzel said the Committee is "going to do everything [it] can to publicize it," which will hopefully ensure that "people are aware of the change."
Truetzel said the supplement will eventually be added to the Committee's green book, which is given to first-year students and is available to all students. Although the proposal has been discussed in-depth by the Committee, it is not something that needs to be voted upon to be added, Truetzel said.
Litchford said he hopes to get "some good feedback" from other community members throughout the coming week, so that he can then make additional changes and present it to the Committee next week during its meeting Sunday night.
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