It is reported this morning,
14 June, that university complaints are up by 20%. The issue of
students being accused of plagiarism has driven this rise, it appears.
Next Tuesday - 19 June - the latest in a series of Dissertation Stations at the Postgraduate Hub, Coventry House, is on this very topic. I've been involved in the past in educating students about the issues involved in proper referencing and what I found to be blatant copy and paste, unacknowledged citing. But I am not just looking at others, as this year I have received feedback on my own essays - not so much of plagiarism, but of excessive use of endnotes and direct quotations. I have had to eat a bit of humble pie and learn from my own mistakes at Masters level.
Humourous, but with a serious message. This pastiche was an idea that I had about six months ago, when the song was released as a single, but which I never shared with anyone until last night, 13 June. I realised the striking ease with which to replace the word 'paradise' from the Coldplay song and make it relevant to writing essays at masters level. Of course, it has relevance beyond my course and my fellow students, but I wanted to make a personal connection with my audience. I re-wrote the lyrics on Monday, practiced it on Tuesday, and performed it on Wednesday. This took place after the Centre for Applied Linguistics house band had performed several numbers for a 'bring a dish' party at the Chaplaincy, University of Warwick. My T-shirt is a reference to my previous university, Anglia (Formerly APU), not to Warwick, who have produced one of the more thorough guides to the Harvard style of referencing publically available on the web. Here is the unedited version of 'Paraphrase' from the party, with the lyrics also published below, which may help for the 'rap' at the end:
Link to lyrics
No comments:
Post a Comment