This text is shaped around six chapters that present the reader with a persuasive argument as to how critically

engaged learning might be established and fostered, and the role

of community (individually and collectively) plays. Drawing attention away from debates
surrounding oppression, control or domination, the authors centre their theoretical and empirical attention on actively engaging young people, their voices and their
community. Accordingly, the reader is left with a very vivid impression that young
people have been actively involved in the retelling of their stories and that the authors have
resisted any attempt to translate their perspectives into an adult voice.
This book does not offer a recipe or checklist for policy-makers, school leaders,
teachers or community. To do this would place this text on a bookshelf that is already far
too crammed with accounts that label disadvantage as a condition that can be ameliorated. Sadly, it is frequently these quick-fix texts that are selected as reference points
because they too easily provide an answer rather than offering serious questions about the
nature of justice as well as injustice. Schools can make a difference in the lives of young
people but only if they are prepared to listen to their constituents. The notion of school
and community as a constituency, not a consumer product, permeates this book. The
authors have taken seriously their mandate to critically engage youth and community and
this is the real pleasure that emerges from this text; a text that should not languish on bookshelves but should be read and reread.
Tanya Fitzgerald
La Trobe University
Plagiarism: The Internet and student learningImproving academic
integrity
Wendy Sutherland-Smith
New York: Routledge, 2008. 224 pp. ISBN: 978 0 415 43292 1.
Plagiarism has always been a concern in higher education, but, with increasing use of the
Internet and cut-and-paste techniques, it has become a more complex issue, and possibly
more difficult to detect. Sutherland-Smith examines the issues in the practical context of a
dialogue with university teachers. Then, after defining plagiarism as an intentional or unintentional fraudulent act, the book undertakes a careful examination of the history of
copyright, student and teacher expectations and cultural differences to provide a way
of understanding how to deal with issues of plagiarism.
Sutherland-Smith introduces a plagiarism continuum: from unintentional plagiarism
to intentional plagiarism. As part of this continuum she portrays the range of possible
responses and how they might interact with the teachers approach to teaching (transmissive versus transformative) and to plagiarism (legal notions versus cross-cultural notions).
This yields four quadrants: transmissive and transformative teaching approaches, and legal
and cross-cultural notions of plagiarism. The plagiarism continuum begins and concludes
this well-written narrative account of the variations among student and teacher perceptions
of the plagiarism dilemma.
At a meeting in the staffroom of a university, several staff members share their
thoughts about when they believe plagiarism occurs, how to recognise plagiarism, procedures for dealing with plagiarism and what should be done when plagiarism is detected.
What becomes apparent is that plagiarism is not a simple matter, and that teachers and
students have widely diverging views.
Using the principle of intention as the basic criterion for determining plagiarism
raises a number of interacting issues. Important among these are the responsibility of

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universities to assist students to behave appropriately in an academic environment, and

cultural differences in relation to the attribution of ideas. This is illustrated by the words of
Cavaleri (2006), who describes how, in Chinese society, referencing sources has been seen
as disrespectful to both reader and expert as it presupposes that the source is not widely
known and that the audience is unable to recognize source material. An ongoing
dilemma for education is the extent to which universities, especially in Australia, have an
obligation to continually educate and support students to understand that adhering to
Western standards of behaviour in relation to plagiarism is an essential part of high-quality
academic work.
Many universities publicise a hard-line policy on plagiarism as cheating and
invoke severe legal-type penalties for students accused of engaging in plagiarism. But, as
Sutherland-Smith points out, most students, when they enter university, re-enter study or
come from other cultural traditions, use patchwriting as a basic survival mechanism.
Patchwriting, a term arising from the work of Howard involves copying from a source
text and then deleting some words, altering grammatical structures or plugging in onefor-one synonym-substitutes (1999, p. 25). A discussion on patchwriting leads to an
historical account of authorship, possession of a work, copyright, originality, the legalities
of authorship and international treaties. Surprisingly, in a book on plagiarism and the
Internet, and in a discussion about copyright, the work of Laurence Lessig (1994) and
the idea of Creative Commons were not included. Creative Commons is a public domain
licence that requires attribution and encourages non-commercial use of a work to enable
knowledge sharing and collaboration. It raises more issues than it provides solutions but
warrants attention in such an important topic.
Plagiarism is a complex concept, argues Sutherland-Smith, who isolates six elements
of plagiarism (pp. 703) from the work of Peccorari (2002):

language
borrowed or stolen
source
by whom
without acknowledgement
with or without intent to deceive.

These six elements provide an excellent framework on which to build detailed policies on
plagiarism. Policies on plagiarism also need to include dialogue between students and
teachers. In an age in which education makes such extensive use of the Internet, intentional and unintentional plagiarism through cut-and-paste techniques is so much easier
than in the past print-based era. Although universities are experimenting with technological detection by software programs such as Turnitin, there remain issues about how to
detect plagiarism and how to decide on the intention of the author.
However, students and teachers understanding and views of plagiarism are not
synonymous. Sutherland-Smith raises an issue of great importance by linking strict legal
penalties for plagiarism to content-driven transmissive methods of teaching and assessment,
while describing transformative methods as encouraging students to promote student
responsibility for intellectual engagement with readings (p. 153).
Sutherland-Smiths treatment of the topic of plagiarism and its attendant issues is
both refreshing and educative. Her narrative style is engaging and grounds the work in a
practical context. Her review of the literature and analysis of issues is detailed, encompassing and relevant although some discussion of open copyright licences may have been useful. Her treatment of plagiarism using a continuum around teaching approaches and the

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intent of the author certainly helps to understand the issues and formulate policy. Questions
remain though, with the publish or perish climate in universities: to what extent does
plagiarism occur among university staff, and what mechanisms are in place to detect it?
References
Cavaleri, N. (2006). Preventing plagiarism. Cambridge University LTS NEWS, 7(12), 13. Retrieved
26 September 2007 from www.admin.cam.uk/offices/education/lts/news/ltsn7.pdf
Howard, R. (1999). Standing in the shadow of giants: Plagiarists, authors, collaborators. Stamford, CT:
Ablex.
Lessig, L. (2004). Free Culture. New York: Penguin Press.
Peccorari, D. (2002). Original reproductions: An investigation of the source use of postgraduate language
writers. Unpublished PhD thesis (University of Birmingham).

Gerry White
Australian Council for Educational Research

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