This semester my lab group recruited an international student to work with us as we needed an extra member as our current trio fell short of the 4-group-member requirement. I suppose it could be said he sought us. Last semester many of us started off on the lab trilogy, where our newest team member had not. Many of the groups were pre-established, and thus finding a group I'm sure proved challenging. We accepted him as our fourth member and assumed that all would be well given his ethnicity. The Chinese always seem to work hard and get excellent grades.
After each completed lab we are expected as a group to compile a lab report. It is customary to break apart the tasks so that no one person is overwhelmed with the amount of work required. We figured with the addition of another member this burden would be even lighter. Tasks were assigned-- our Chinese member receiving the task of writing up the theory used in the laboratory experiment. It quickly became apparent that he had plagerized the entire theory section from various sources. Naturally, we the trio of Americans (myself included) were greatly angered by this. To us this was not only lazy but unethical. The work had to be re-written by one of our team members.
We addressed the issue the week after the realization. It was explained that this act of copying paragraphs of material without citing one's sources or using quotation marks was wrong. After this we assumed the problem would be resolved and started the next laboratory assignment.
Within a week of this incident, there was to be a seminar about the very topic of plagiarism. Sadly, our team member did not attend. We discussed many scenarios, one which lingered on my mind. There was a case of a man who had earned his PhD later for the background and theory section of his dissertation to be cited for plagiarism. The thing that struck me odd is that the man was from a foreign country (in this case not China) and did not feel he had done anything wrong in copying over 10 pages of another student's published thesis in his own dissertation. He had provided the source in his bibliography.
As we began compiling the second experiment's lab report I discovered that again (though this time less obvious) our team member had plagiarized several sections of the theory in bulk form. Again, I felt anger. I had not spent hours working on my section to be handed something that was simply copied from sources and yet again the section had to be rewritten. I expressed how upset I was in an email reminding all my lab members that plagiarism was unacceptable. I had never come across this problem before in my entire academic career. I'm sure my fellow lab member was penalized more heavily for the wrong answer.
Our beloved fourth lab member spoke with another one of my lab members this past week while I was home sick with a migraine. He felt terrible as he had tried to produce his section in "his own words". I have since realized that our team member had trouble understanding this concept in the same manner as we Americans do. My entire academic career was spent on threats of flunking classes, losing scholarships, and gaining shame if I even thought of producing plagiarized work as my own. Websites like turnitin.com were used to insure my adherence to the practice of producing original but correct answers.
I have come to realize that the American way, while protecting intellectual property, is not practiced by all the world. My team member simply did not realize he was doing something wrong. He had the correct answer, and an answer that was well published and well written. English is his second language, thus having to produce several pages on a technical topic becomes cumbersome.
The moral of the story is the solution is not as simple as we might have hoped. Morals and professional ethics is not practiced the same across the world. In some countries having the right answer (regardless of the source) may far better than having the wrong answer in one's own words. The collective knowledge of people moves from individual credit to the realm of anonymous and public property. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. What is yours (and correct) is mine.
However, the American way of professional ethics demands the acknowledgement of an individual. There is no collectivism. What is yours is not mine. I must be creative. The need to master not only the idea but the English language is vital in relaying an idea just as majestically as the individual I am referencing. To use his idea exactly is stealing, no matter how perfectly poetic his idea is cast. I am required to reinvent the wheel.
Our team member needs help in fully grasping this idea. This transition is not easy and our help will ensure the process is speedier. He needs help in executing it after he has understood. This week we have assigned him to data processing and this time I know he will do an excellent job.
