V. Internet Integrity: Keeping the partnership honest

Referencing skills

An email was sent to me, among many other people being spammed, by an anonymous source. In the email was an unreferenced quote, which I subsequently copied and put on my office door along with other pithy quotes of possible relevance to student's lives. A colleague stopped and asked about the author of the words. I told the story, and he responded that he was certain he'd heard those words in a country and western song, and that by posting them on my door it appeared that I was taking credit for them.

Wow. I was guilty of plagiarism, and possibly of copyright violation. I was clearly guilty of intellectual theft, and in the academic world of thoughts and ideas intellectual property is a seriously regarded concept. I had deleted the email after writing down the quote, and did not have even the cryptic return address for a reference. I immediately penned into the bottom of the sign "Source: Anonymous email, April 1999," and, unable to locate an author for the words, I have subsequently removed the sign from the collection on my door. It's too bad. The message was neat.

This story describes an incidence of plagiarism that is not at all uncommon, particularly now that so much information comes from the Internet. It is less a matter of the intentional misuse of other people's words than a matter of carelessness, and to some regard, lack of thought about the idea of intellectual property.

Plagiarism concerns educators partially because it is so closely related to learning to think. In referencing someone else's ideas, you must be able to distinguish differences. You learn to read material and analyze ideas with the understanding that they reflect a perspective, not necessarily a great truth. This is an especially necessary skill in sociology and disciplines in which the topic of study is the dynamic human interacting in a dynamic cultural context. It likewise takes skill to write well when the use of others' words and thoughts are being incorporated into your own. That's what many of your college writing assignments are about-learning to reference and acknowledge the work of other people while at the same time developing your own ideas.

Plagiarism is, quite simply, using someone else's words and taking credit for them, either directly or implied, as in the example of the quote I put on my office door. It can be either intentional or unintentional. Either way, it is still plagiarism.

The MLA Guide to Ethical Writing, http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/, contains an excellent set of examples to help you understand the subtleties of appropriate referencing. The examples are particularly useful to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate use of paraphrasing, quoting, and the re-writing someone else's words.

A major concern to writers on the Internet is the protection of copyright. Copyright is a treasured American institution--the very first Copyright Act was signed into law by George Washington in 1790 (Bonnar, 1999). It was designed to protect the intellectual property of the author or initiator of a creative work. Penny Bonnar's fine article "Understanding copyright and its applications to the information age" (1999), gives some basic information about what copyright is and how it is used and misused. The URL is http://www.iigs.org/newsletter/9904news/copyright.htm.en. For a more in-depth review, copyright statutes and judicial opinions and regulations can be located at http://fairuse.stanford.edu. Many other sites on copyright and the Internet are also available.

Accurate and appropriate referencing of Internet material is not always as easy to do as it sounds. If you were to write a book, say, on power and relationship in the family, it would be clear that the contents of that book is yours. The book is copyrighted. When your words are repeated elsewhere, they are referenced back to the source from which they came-your book. Material appearing online, however, might be in the form of an unsigned chat room comment, or some other source so far removed from the original author that it would be improbable if not impossible track the original source. Does that mean the information cannot be used? When we are exposed to the plethora of information in a search process on a particular topic, how do we even remember the source of one factoid-one small piece of information that must be fitted into a larger picture to have any real meaning?

Ethical use of information

Copyright violation is against the law. Plagiarism is counter to ethical standards. Both are theft of intellectual property, and undermine the processes of analyzing ideas, building new concepts, and being ethical, law-abiding citizens.

The very term "downloading" means replicating copies of another person's work. Copyright is "the exclusive right to make and distribute copies of a work" (Bonnar, 1999), and it is a tremendously hot topic given the ability to instantly download entire documents. Clearly someone wrote all of the material that appears online, but the original source is often either insubstantially referenced, or not referenced at all. So if you want to site a source or use part of a document (such as a figure or graphic) in a project you are working on, it might be nearly impossible to locate the original author of that material. To avoid plagiarizing the work, you can site the source from which you take the material, but, as in the opening example of this section, locating the originator of the words-the one holding the copyright, or the right to the copyright-might be nigh impossible. And rest assured that someone's nose will be out of joint if they read something and discover their own words, or figures, or graphics, staring back at them. Not only that: the use of someone else's work as your own is unethical.

In addition to the appropriate acknowledgment of sources, ethical writing means making sure the information you use is not misappropriated through fallacy or false thinking. It is your responsibility to be certain that the factual information you base your assertions on is not misappropriated through ideology, unethical research, or fallacy. Given the ability of the Internet to blend fact with perspective and content with presentation, this responsibility is now more important than ever. For example, some Serbian Web pages are apparently designed to convince Serbs that Serbians were being put to death in camps, not the other way around. Think about it. What resources are available for double-checking the validity of information? Understanding your responsibility to do so in your own work is imperative.

Referencing Web sources

It is very easy to get lost in the Internet maze. For this reason, your Internet browser probably has a history button to help you recreate the steps you took during a Web search. The history feature is there for just the reason described above: you have pulled (or remembered) one piece of information from a 30-minute search of 20 different sites, and now you need the reference. By following the history of the search, you can retrace your steps and probably locate the source of your information. By meticulously recording references for all resources you download or note, you can avoid the need to revisit each site in a search for the material you want to use.

New formats had to develop and be standardized to reference Internet material that address the fluidity of the Net. The following URLs are good resources for you to have at your fingertips whenever you write using material you have gleaned from a Net search. Some of the sites are also useful to you if you plan to publish your written material on the Net, perhaps through a home page established for your class.

Research style guides and online resources

Electronic Sources: APA Style of Citation
http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html

Electronic Sources: MLA Style of Citation
http://www.mla.org

Elements of style on line
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing

MLA Style
http://www.mla.org

Ethical Writing: MLA Guide
http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/

Writing for Multimedia
http://home.earthlink.net/~atomic_rom/contents.htm

Yale Web Authoring Style Guide
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual

Learning more: Ethics in action

Exercise 1

Go to http://www.iigs.org/newsletter/9904news/copyright.htm.en and summarize Bonnar's myths of online copyright law. Why is online copyright law such a hot topic for Internet publishers and users? Do you see any copyright issues unique to the Internet? Contrast the information on copyright with information on plagiarism from http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/.

Exercise 2

The following Net sites discuss ethics in published research. Select one of the sites listed below and copy a paragraph that has some meaning to you. Now write your own paragraph in which you utilize the material you have copied. You are developing your own exercise in the appropriate written use of copyrighted material.

Human Radiation Experiments (DOE)
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre

Human Subjects and Research Ethics
http://www.psych.bangor.ac.uk/deptpsych/Ethics/HumanResearch.html

MK Ultra
http://earthops.org/mk_ultra.html

Tuskeegee Study
http://www.gpc.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/tuskegee.html

What might be some examples of unethical use of the Internet for gathering information on scientific studies? Locate an example of a Web site which you feel uses information unethically.

Exercise 3

What defines style in writing for the Internet as opposed to paper-based writing? Visit the APA and the MLA style sites listed above and contrast them with information from the Wired Style site.

Using the resources located at http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual and http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/, how do the ethical dimensions of netiquette, differ from academic writing?

Exercise 4

Update your personal glossary, including the addition of new terms and concepts, and the deletion of words you no longer feel that you need.