Teaching the politics of citation: Challenging students’ perceptions

Abstract

In many of my regular one-shot instruction sessions, I often ask students why we cite in our work. The responses are typically the same: to avoid an Honor Code violation, because plagiarism is wrong, to give credit. Sometimes I’ll hear “to find other articles.” All these responses are correct and valid reasons to cite. But I often feel like the idea of “credit” feels vague to students and that the consequences of not giving credit affect the person who should be citing, rather than the person not being cited. So often students, especially undergraduates, are taught citations with the message: if you do not cite, you will be penalized. Students are threatened with punitive measures from their professors or the honor council should they mis-cite or plagiarize. I often have students schedule reference consultations with me seeking help to fix their citations to make up points lost—and for some, those technical errors were the only major concerns with the paper. We have been teaching from a place of compliance and fear—fear of plagiarizing, fear of losing points on technicalities. It’s no wonder they don’t engage when we teach how to correctly craft an article citation in their discipline’s style.