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November 15, 2006, 03:59 PM ET
The Pros and Cons of Turnitin
We’ve noted in recent months that debate over Turnitin — the antiplagiarism tool that has amassed a giant database of student papers — seems to be intensifying. Here’s a particularly interesting dispatch from that debate: a back-and-forth discussion of the service from Silver Chips Online, the student newspaper at Montgomery Blair High School, in Maryland.
Writing in favor of Turnitin, Hareesh Ganesan says the service is “objective,” “unforgiving,” and “unbiased by prior student performance” — qualities that make it uniquely fair in rooting out plagiarism.
But Justin Vlasits argues that his school should stop using Turnitin because the tool adds papers to its database without compensating the students who wrote them. “Ironically, by stealing the students’ intellectual property, Turnitin commits the very evil it claims to combat,” he writes.
All in all, it’s an awfully articulate debate on a tricky topic. Which raises the question: If high-school students are having detailed conversations about the antiplagiarism tool, should we expect more college students and professors to follow suit? —Brock Read
Categories: Teaching, Student-Life
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