Turn-It-Off: Reflections on Technology, the Knowledge Commons and the Academic Plagiarism Industry

Abstract

This essay concerns the pervasive “problem” of plagiarism in student writing, arguing against the easy adoption of technological policing “solutions” that may themselves contribute to an erosion of authentic learning and knowledge production. The paper critically examines the key tool, or weapon, in the war against plagiarism, namely the educational software Turnitin, and some of the discontent that has arisen in consequence of its widespread adoption in academic institutions. The second part of the essay examines practices of literary plagiarism, using the example of Shakespeare and Coetzee to question notions of originality. Both writers, one from the Renaissance, the other from contemporary literature, will serve as illustrative bookends for the English literary canon as a whole, exemplifying the close relationship between copying and creativity. These ideas are applied to the concept of a “knowledge commons,” which is indispensable to the idea of a good university, and which is being crowded out by inflated discourses of plagiarism and an overreach of plagiarism policing in the academy. Lastly, the essay briefly offers a few practical and pedagogic observations.