Listen Now: Colbert Cancelled – Comedy Communications
This week I wanted to explore the topic of plagiarism.
Now I think we all know what plagiarism is, but the general gist is that you’re taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. This can be done both intentionally and unintentionally. Conveniently, this week CBC’s Front Burner released a podcast episode that was actually quite timely for my piece, because it discussed the use of AI in post-secondary educational institutions by both students and faculty. From what the interviewee was suggesting, it seems a lot of students are using AI to complete their work for them, partially, if not fully. Some students use the tool to find resources and pointers, others use it to study, some use it to write essay outlines, or write essays all together.
They also mentioned that professors are using AI tools as well. Some professors are using them to write lessons and provide feedback on papers, while others are using AI to help students by writing textbooks or study guides. There was even an instance mentioned where a primary school/secondary school had AI chatbots that were historical figures that students could engage with.
You can kind of see the difference in usage here, where some are dabbling a little for assistance, some are using it to augment learning, while others are using it to replace their own work.
I do think there are ways to make AI useful in a post-secondary setting. While having a chatbot write your essay for you feels like it defeats the purpose of school. Using a chatbot to make things more efficient, or help you bounce ideas off of could be helpful. Again, in my mind it is a resource and a tool, not an essay writer or a replacement for your own work.
Now what I really wanted to focus on today is self-plagiarism. The first thought when it comes to self-plagiarism is “can you really plagiarize yourself?” The answer is a resounding yes. It’s also actually an issue I’ve had to grapple with and learn more about while writing this blog. Not because I’ve been plagiarizing myself, but because I could in the future.
Since I’m writing this blog on topics surrounding my intended thesis topic, it is possible that if I was to write similar things while completing my masters, I could be accidentally plagiarizing myself! Of course, this required some thought as to how I can continue writing this blog, exploring the topics that interest me for my thesis, without exploring too deeply such that it limits what I can now include within my thesis.
So, my question was, how far can I go into these topics before I make a self-plagiarism issue for my thesis? From what I can tell, I can explore topics and ideas, and formulate questions. I can even point to my blog later and say “hey well I explored some of these ideas in my previous work, but this is what I’m going to explore here.” The most important thing about writing a Masters thesis, is that you need to be completing original work. If I post things on my blog and include them in my Masters, that’s no longer original work, and would be considered plagiarism.
What I can do, is formulate questions and explore areas of interest without offering in-depth research. It’s also not self-plagiarism if I’m writing about and explaining concepts pertinent to my thesis. I can talk the ins and outs of two-step flow, and completely avoid plagiarizing myself in my thesis as an example.
So, while it is an interesting balancing act, it’s also still a good method to show my work, show some thought process, and explore my area of interest, without writing full fledged theories and articles.
Comedy Communications 