Research questions in authorship:
A worksheet

 (Last updated 20 September 2006)

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CCR 732
Authorship and Curriculum

Fall 2006
Syracuse University
Time: Thursdays 2-4:50 p.m.
Place: 020 HB Crouse

Rebecca Moore Howard
Office: 237 HB Crouse
Office hours
Phone 315-443-1620
rehoward@syr.edu
FAX: 315-691-9821
AIM: ProfBfromWV

Question

Methodology notes

Understanding the figure of the author

 How do we define authorship?

Student authorship

 How does the academy offer "ownership" of ideas?

The purposes of writing: writers' self-perceptions

 To what extent do students regard their work as a contribution to cultural knowledge? To what extent do students regard their work as a proof that they understand cultural knowledge?

Finding source texts: writers' practices

 What search strategies do students follow for locating sources?

Using source texts: writers' options

 What options do writers have for using a source text?
  1. Quotation
    (a) attributed
    (b) unattributed
    (c) marked
    (d) unmarked
  2. Summary
    (a) attributed
    (b) unattributed
    (c) marked
    (d) unmarked
  3. Paraphrase
    (a) attributed
    (b) unattributed
    (c) marked
    (d) unmarked
  4. Allusion
    (a) attributed
    (b) unattributed
    (c) marked
    (d) unmarked
  5. Patchwriting
    (a) attributed
    (b) unattributed
    (c) marked
    (d) unmarked

Using source texts: writers' beliefs and practices
  1. What options do students believe they have for using a source text?
  2. What options do they exercise?
  3. How ethical and useful do they believe these options are?
  4. Issues with students cutting out parts of quotations to manipulate them for their own use.

Writing summaries: writers' practices

 How do writers summarize text: how much is summary, how much paraphrase, how much copying (with/without quotation marks), and how much patchwriting? How does that balance change as the writer becomes more experienced, and in response to what factors? How does that balance change as the text is revised, and in response to what factors? Do students think they are analyzing a text/texts when they're really re-stating a text's argument or ideas?

Using source texts: writers' purposes

 Do students use source texts to support preexisting claims? To formulate claims? How do students deal with material that contradicts or complicates their claims?

Using source texts: effective instruction

 What instreuction in source use and comprehension have students received that they regard as particularly useful? What further instruction in source use and comprehension do they believe they need?

Pedagogical practices

 How does one measure/assess what is plagiarized? Does that need to be changed and, if so, how can that be changed? What are the more positive ways to address concerns of plagiarism/authorship? How can it be done in a less corrective, intimidating, and big brother fashion? How do varied approaches to teaching writing influence plagiarism?

Teaching in the "grey area" of authorship

 What about the fracturing of identity? Is someone a plagarist or not a plagarist? disabled or not disabled? How can pedagogical practices and theories encourage our location between the binaries? How do our responses to student writing foster or squelch plagiarism? Do our assignments also play a role? How can teacher-student conferences impact plagiarism issues? What role does collecting, and commenting on, student drafts, play in the picture? If teachers make the extra effort to do so, does this have a direct impact on student plagiarism issues? If so, how? And, how much of the drafts are teachers collecting? How can internet forums like Blackboard affect plagiarism issues?

Understanding plagiarism

 How do we study interdisciplinary writing? What does plagiarism look like in each discipline? How does secondary education construction plagiarism ideas in the freshmen writing classroom? Does the type of writing (ie labs, personal narratives, ete) influence the type and degree of plagiarism? Is it still plagiarism if students "copy" teacher comments?

Variations in plagiarism

 Is lack of diversity related to plagiarism? Location? Class? Race? Gender? Linguistic situation?

Understanding collaboration

 How do we define collaboration? How can we promote (overly) collaborative work as valid? How does one measure the level of collaboration or the level of individuation? In what ways does collaboration impact student writing by signaling plagiarism?

Representing collaboration

 How can researched figures aid in separating popular romanticized sentiments of the solitary artistic genius from the view that, since all knowledge is socially constructed, all texts are collaborative? In "NCTE/CCCC's Recent War on Scholarship," Richard Haswell illustrates considerable animosity to RAD research in major disciplinary publications; in what ways does this behavior exemplify weighting of the personal experience of the profession over the communal (and therefore, conceptions of authorship and research as singular and not collaborative)?

Preventing plagiarism: evaluating the options

 How effective are the various solutions (e.g., honor codes, Turnitin, and pedagogy) to student plagiarism?

Preventing plagiarism: evaluating the evidence

 How valid and reliable is the evidence being offered in published scholarship about the effectiveness of various solutions (e.g., honor codes, Turnitin, and pedagogy) to student plagiarism?

Acknowledging source texts: writers' practices

 When students use ideas derived from a source text, do they acknowledge the source? Why or why not? If they do, how do they cite the source?

Fair use: writers' perceptions

 What differences do students perceive between the fair use of online and print sources?

Technology and collaboration

 How do new technologies (internet, assistive tech. for people with disabilities) change our understanding of collaboration/authorship? and what are the responses/reactions from these new understandings?
What are the mediums for public access? [to what?]
How do we subvert eh "standardization" myth? [of what?]