So says, apparently, a German teenage author, or "author," in this New York Times piece. The article details how plagiarism is increasing on college campuses, not necessarily by students trying to cheat, but out of ignorance over who owns certain information and whether citations are even necessary.
The idea that information on the Internet is available for public use and consumption without need for attribution is a frightening one. It ties in directly with ability of citizens to distill which sources are valid, solid and reputable, and which are potentially unreliable, unstable and questionable. The irony in the Internet Age is that while we now virtually drowning in information, and are presumably better and more easily informed, there is a heightened need to determine from where every piece of information is derived.
As some of my friends will attest, I'm still an unabashed backer of the Mainstream Media, primarily for this reason: there is a tried and true, though not at all flawless, system of vetting and confirming information that is blatantly lacking in many newer media outlets online. On one hand, it seems second nature to many of us who went to college at the dawn of the Internet Age that you should recognize and use primary sources to support your text; that you should reference such sources, or any other resources you've used; and that your sources be able to stand up to scrutiny from a professor or reader.
However, as the New York Times piece explains, there is a decreasing sense of such responsibility among students who grew up with the ability to access information quickly, but who give less thought to who or what provided such information.
Wikipedia is probably the best and most popular example of readily available information that may be coming from unreliable sources. I've spent a lot of time on that site and find it extremely useful and a pretty brilliant idea, in general. But, by its very nature -- an evolving resource that can be edited and written by anyone -- it is an unreliable source for any serious academic writing. That does not mean, however, that it doesn't have value. Its intended use, I believe, is to inform quickly, but also encourage you to further investigate the concepts using more solid sources and media. To that end, many -- but, not all -- Wikipedia entries include references to primary sources, which would more than likely serve as reliable reference, or, at the very least, offer support to the text. Merely copying and pasting content from a site like Wikipedia should feel inherently wrong to a student. I haven't been out of school so long that the entire concept of having to properly cite has reached extinction.
In any age, with any medium used, that's just plain laziness -- as a college senior says in the Times article. The author of the article seems to imply that because college-age people have grown up stealing music digitally, being bombarded by "mash-ups" and sampling in popular music and seeing pop icons whose actual identity is secondary, they simply might not know better. I don't see the correlation. In each instance, there is an originator, an author and a definable source of the information they are obtaining. I'm willing to bet if someone has illegally downloaded the entire Lady Gaga catalog, they can still identify the songs as being her performances. The younger generation might think it's irrelevant, but I doubt they are ignorant to the concept of authorship. If there is ignorance, it lies in thinking authorship and idea origination are not important.
It is the onus of teachers of writing in middle school and high school and professors at colleges to continue to teach and emphasize the concept of reliable sources (shout-out to Howard Kurtz there) and of intellectual property. An idea is not for the world's consumption without deference to its thinker. Its importance at the academic level is surely important, but more broadly, it is an essential concept that our next generation of national thinkers and voters need to understand. In the age of the blogosphere and cable news outlets dominating the national conversation with seemingly little regard for accuracy and vetting in their reporting, it is of dire consequence that, at the very least, the people absorbing such information be ever vigilant. They must be able to differentiate between the reliable and the suspect, the solid and the questionable.
The Internet Age does not spell the end of originality. Nor should it be the death knell for innovation or the concept of intellectual property. These concepts are still essential components to having a nation of experimenters, tinkerers and thinkers -- the people who ultimately take societies and civilizations to a future unimagined, the people willing to risk total failure to see an idea through. Their successes should never go unnamed and unremarked. The ability to distill and process information properly continuing respect and reverence to the concept of authorship are absolutely intermingled. If it is believed that the source doesn't matter, then the information is inherently suspect. If one's ideas can be copied and pasted in perpetuity without regard for their origin, there will be a dearth of innovators.
Originality is important. Respect for the creators is important. Teaching teens and 20-somethings that these concepts are only more important now is imperative for the continued success of this country.
