Article Review #2

Schlipp, J. (2010). Creative thinking: A student-centered approach to plagiarism and copyright. Kentucky Libraries, 74(3).

Introduction:

The scope of this article is to help teachers and librarians help promote the correct way to cite and give credit to the person who created the work. The most important aspect of this article is determining the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement. The University of Northern Kentucky library has put together several films and a website dedicated to creative writing of original material and facts about plagiarism and copyright. This article definitely helped me focus on a more narrow scope and what I want to do with plagiarism. I want to develop some sort of lesson plan or material to promote the awareness of plagiarism.

Problem Statement:

According to a Microsoft survey in 2008, more than 50% of today’s teens aren’t familiar with the consequences of copyright laws and illegal downloading (Schlipp 2010). Schlipp intends to raise awareness and give teachers and librarians creative ways to teach this.

Literature Review:

This work draws from a couple of studies from Microsoft and studies collected by the University of Northern Kentucky. This article itself doesn’t extend the research but material held within it can definitely spawn new research. There are several tools at hand and using these and holding another study/survey hopefully can yield some positive results. If they don’t you can see if these lessons and teachings are effective and build from there.

Method:

All research was done digitally through online surveys. The population was strictly teenagers and high school students.

Caveat:

Testing the validity of plagiarism studies is extremely difficult. Who knows if the students are being truthful. It’s very hard to make a factual statement when it’s such a sensitive subject. Students don’t want to say they’re cheating so some bias may occur. Hopefully these lessons and activities well help spread the word on plagiarism and copyright infringement.