John Sivell - Brock University, Canada

At first glance it is surprising that – in remarkable contrast to grammatical or lexical failings which,while certainly not viewed as insignificant, are rarely greeted with outright anger or hostility –inappropriate documentation of scholarly sources so frequently provokes very harsh penalties. Ratherthan the constructively pedagogical approach that one would expect with regard to other defects inwriting, why do we so often witness a rush to negative evaluation of what may, after all, be evidenceof nothing more culpable than misinformation, confusion, or oversight? Much has of course beenwritten about possible remedies for ineffective use of scholarly sources and, on the other hand, aboutavailable monitoring and punishment for deliberate plagiarism; so, in a sense, the alternatives appearquite simple. However, decisions about when to adopt a more pedagogical or a more disciplinaryviewpoint are complicated by difficult and potentially emotional factors that can disrupt calm,confident and well-reasoned judgment. Thus, this paper will focus not on pedagogical or disciplinarystrategies, whichever may be considered suitable in a given case, but on a framework for thoroughreflection earlier in the thinking process. It will explore multiple perspectives on possible origins forthe innocent if maladroit mishandling of scholarly sources, with a view to highlighting a number ofinformative but potentially neglected reference points – a cognitive psychological perspective onhuman error and error management, plausible ambiguities in determining what actually constitutesplagiarism, and communication challenges – that may enter into the instructor’s final determination.

Plagiarism; human error; cognition; patch writing; innovation