CBS Sunday Morning's featured story on plagiarism included intimate interviews with infamous plagiarists Quentin Rowan and Jayson Blair, and includes a brief conversation with Turnitin CEO Chris Caren.
Quentin Rowan authored his first novel, "Assassin of Secrets" in 2011 and was found to largely be a mash-up of 20 different books including popular James Bond titles. "There are stretches that go for maybe 10-15 pages, where the only thing changed are the names," Rowan said.
NBC News recently spoke to Dominican University about Turnitin for Admissions, a service that detects matched content specifically in applicant essays. With a limited number of spots available in various college programs, Turnitin for Admissions will help them identify those who truly deserve to be there.
View this video at: http://nbcbayarea.com.
Learn more about Turnitin for Admissions »
The Poynter Institute recently published their annual roundup of plagiarism and fabrication incidents in the media and publishing industry. 2011 saw 21 such incidents in a variety of topics like sports, entertainment, politics, special interests and general news. Writer Craig Silverman highlighted that October 2011 was an abnormally big month for plagiarism, accounting for over 40% of the incidents for the entire year. Read the entire article here.
While repercussions from plagiarism vary—retractions, apologies, fines, suspensions, and firings; one thing that follows these writers is a scarlet letter practically branded across their foreheads of being plagiarists.
Suffice to say that there are a lot of factors and excuses that are involved in plagiarism in the media. Two factors seem most notable; (1) a rush to meet a deadline that causes some missed attribution; and (2) competitive pressure from editors, colleagues and other journalists. It's important for editors to be wary of these pressures and reinforce to their writers the permanence and damage that can result from missed attribution both, to the writer and to the publication.
Sound familiar?
There is little doubt that a large part of plagiarism incidents are intentional attempts to cheat, perhaps an equal proportion of incidents stems from students that are uninformed or unaware of proper citation and plagiarism. According to an article in THE Journal, this idea is supported by many educators as well as new research concluding that increasing knowledge on plagiarism and citation is a more effective approach than punitive approaches.U.S. President Barack Obama participated in a live half-hour interview on NBC's TODAY show with Matt Lauer talking about education as part of the "Education Nation” summit. Watch the interview here:
Read the transcript at: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39378576/ns/today-parenting
Some highlights from the interview:
A new study from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln examines the prevalence and perceptions of cheating among high school students.
Key findings of the study show:
Over 80 percent of college faculty are using social media, according to a survey released by Babson Survey Research Group in collaboration with New Marketing Labs and Pearson Learning Solutions on May 4th, 2010. The study found that a majority of respondents (59%) said they have more than one social networking account and nearly 25 percent have four or more accounts. Thirty percent of respondents use social networks to communicate with students, and 1/3 use them to connect with peers.
"College faculty have embraced social media and a majority have integrated some form of these tools into their teaching," said Jeff Seaman, Ph.D., co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group. "While some faculty remain skeptical, the overall opinion is quite positive, with faculty reporting that social media has value for teaching by over a four to one margin."
Turnitin's PeerMark and GradeMark tools are listed in eLearn Magazine's feature article "eLearning Tools for English Composition: 30 New Media Tools and Web Sites for Writing Teachers" by college compusition and literature instructor Keri Bjorklund. She writes:
