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ERIC Number: EJ1361686
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 10
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1534-9322
EISSN: EISSN-1542-5894
AI-Based Text Generation and the Social Construction of "Fraudulent Authorship": A Revisitation
Anson, Chris M.
Composition Studies, v50 n1 p37-46 2022
Student plagiarism has challenged educators for decades, with heightened paranoia following the advent of the Internet in the 1980's and ready access to easily copied text. But plagiarism will look like child's play next to new developments in AI-based natural-language processing (NLP) systems that increasingly appear to "write" as effectively as humans. How people theorize and contextualize these developments will guide the way to meet their challenges in all courses where writing is assigned and evaluated In this article, the author first revisits an article they wrote for Composition Studies in 2011, "Fraudulent Practices: Academic Misrepresentations of Plagiarism in the Name of Good Pedagogy" (EJ960936). In that article, the author argued that what counts as plagiarism in some contexts occurs with impunity across a wide range of published material. This is because definitions of plagiarism are socially constructed and tied to context-sensitive cycles of reward for the production--and therefore the ownership--of certain kinds of texts. Helping students to understand plagiarism means showing them these contextually-specific constructs of text ownership, rather than assuming that any unattributed text, published anywhere, in any form, constitutes plagiarism. The author then turns to AI-based NLP systems. Teachers who learn what these systems can do usually respond with the same hand-wringing and defensive posture triggered by concerns about student plagiarism. But a social-practices interpretation again breaks open the systems' perceived threats and reveals a more nuanced and contextual approach to their challenges--and their potential acceptance and use--alongside writing produced by humans.
Composition Studies. Available from: English Department, UMass Boston. 100 William T. Morrissey Blvd, Boston, MA 02125; e-mail: compstudiesjournal@gmail.com; Web site: https://compstudiesjournal.com/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A