Exactly. We use MLA in our first-year writing program. Yes, conventions for citing online have changed; we discuss that, and we ask them to buy up-to-date style guides, and of course there’s the OWL. No one’s getting dinged because MLA met and changed a rule last week (not that they did.)
As far as different formats–different disciplines have different ones. So if a student is in a social science course, they’re going to use APA, or possibly ASA. Student in history is going to use Chicago Style (condolences to them!), etc. etc. It’s not random, and students do need to know which format each class uses, and proceed accordingly.
Again, it really comes down to paying attention, and not relying on guesswork.
One thing that might help is correcting the terminology - self plagiarism.
Plagiarism - the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
early 17th century: from Latin plagiarius ‘kidnapper’
By that definition you cannot Self plagiarize unless you are two people.
Here’s an example: The title of a “Works Cited” page is Works Cited. I have seen it as Work Cited (when there are more than one), Works Sited, Works Cited Page, and my favorite (comes up all the time): “Works Citied.”
Students also, extremely frequently, underline it, bold it, put it in quotation marks, change the font, change the font size, add a colon, decenter it. etc etc etc. None of this is correct. Is getting this right the most important thing? Not really. Is it the easiest thing to get right? Yes. But you have to glance at a format book to do so.
That’s because, as others have pointed out, different disciplines have different styles.
Some of the reasons for the details of these styles are sheer cussedness (why the gratuitous parentheses, APA? why?), but most of the differences are for good reason—e.g., APA (and most other scientific and social scientific) styles foreground the currency of the work by making the date a bigger deal than in MLA (and some other humanities styles), which are more concerned with issues like provenance.
That said, I do like to point out to my students that, with a very few exceptions,* all of the styles out there actually contain the same information, it’s just presented in a different way in each of them to allow what’s important for each discipline to be easier to find and work with. This means that it’s usually trivial to move from one to the other, really—not a big issue at all, or at least it shouldn’t be.
Like the MLA's insistence that you say whether you used a print or online version of an article, or some styles' omission of the full first name of an author.
Faulty logic—that’s not the way lexical compounding works.
Consider, for a fairly trivial example, that a ‘blackbird’ isn’t a ‘black bird’—if it were, then a raven would be a blackbird, but actual blackbirds aren’t as entirely black as ravens are. Go figure.
Or, more materially, that ‘manslaughter’ can involve the killing of a woman, or that even though everyone has skin on their heads (sometimes, as in the case of those naturally bald, quite visibly), ‘skinhead’ is not a universal appellation for humanity.
I don’t consider it plagiarism (or a violation of an honor code for that matter) when a junior member of my team sends out a document which does not conform to the corporate standard for that particular piece of communication- letter, report, powerpoint, excel, email, request for funding, etc.
But I make a mental note… and hope that the lesson gets learned after one mess-up, and not that this is a young professional who needs to be told time after time to use the appropriate template, format, or protocol. Companies standardize various forms of written communication for lots of reasons- protect a trademark, prevent inadvertent use of someone else’s trademark, make it quick and easy for document retention and retrieval, increase efficiency so that thousands of employees don’t sit around wondering, “I’m about to send a status report on XYZ- where does the analysis go, and where does the supporting data go?”. It would be ludicrous to reinvent the wheel thousands of times a day when we’ve got a standard format and rules governing citation, editing, etc.
So not a bad lesson to learn in college. Use the format the professor requires; follow the rules set out (however random you may find them) and verify for each class that you are using the appropriate protocol.
My head is reeling from all the info but first of all, let me thank everyone who responded whether you thought letter of reprimand + letter reduction in grade is fair or think is heavy handed. My aim in reaching out to the CC community is to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of her case and all of you have helped me in that aspect. It is interesting that lot of people in academia feel that it is a violation. I think it is because they are aware of the policies where as general population including student body is not fully educated on the topic of self plaigiarism. I have reused my own code in various courses in my masters program and have never came across any policy on reuse. In fact, in software reuse of code is encouraged for modularity. Anyway, I do not want to digress.
I am not addressing each post seperately but want to emphasize that D’s intention is not to blame the prof nor hint that the instructions were misleading or anything of that sort. In fact, she is feeling extra sad that it happened with a prof she respects and a prof who likes her. All she wants to say is that it is a mistake which happenned because in her mind, she was going to be upfront and inform her TA that her draft contained her previous work, she did not think she was doing anything wrong. However, now she knows she was wrong in thinking so…and she wants to see if the committee would agree with her that letter grade reduction is sufficient/appropriate punishment and would clear the letter of reprimand. In the appeal she wrote so far her apology is coming off sincere but the challenge is to ask for clearing the letter of reprimand without sounding greedy/entitled. If any of you have any suggestions in wording this, please PM me.
I would appreciate if folks familiar with appeals process, profs or anyone connected with universities can respond - Would providing recommendations on her character from her boss(she works for the university), profs, high school teachers be relevant and helpful ? Would such letters be accepted in a committee hearing ? She has significant awards in high school where integrity and compassion are a major selection criteria. Would bringing it up be irrelevant or even worse, irritating to hear ?
Again, thanks to everyone for the feedback. I will let this thread be a generic discussion thread from now on if there is enough interest on the topic.
The daughter here is very different from the friends my daughter mentioned, who intentionally play the system by submitting papers multiple times for different courses. (They may not be able to do that now, due to software catching up). I just want to say that very clearly. This was a mistake and could have been avoided, yes, but she was not intentionally gaming the system. So I hope she ends up with a good resolution even though the policy may need to stand because of slippery slope issues.
Just an update - D decided not to appeal the letter of reprimand. She is concerned that it might look like she is not accepting the consequences if she appeals. Thanks again for your thoughts and the feedback. Appreciate it
but first of all, let me thank everyone who responded whether you thought letter of reprimand + letter reduction in grade is fair or think is heavy handed. My aim in reaching out to the CC community is to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of her case and all of you have helped me in that aspect. It is interesting that lot of people in academia feel that it is a violation. I think it is because they are aware of the policies where as general population including student body is not fully educated on the topic of self plaigiarism. I have reused my own code in various courses in my masters program and have never came across any policy on reuse. In fact, in software reuse of code is encouraged for modularity. Anyway, I do not want to digress.