Winning Hearts

The obvious use of plagiarism in college students’ assignments has become a major problem in today’s education system. Due to this, instructors are trying to find ways to teach their students about the ethics involved in writing so that they will stop plagiarizing. However, in order to do this, instructors must first understand how students view plagiarism and understand the best ways to put an end to student plagiarism. In “Winning Hearts and Minds in War on Plagiarism,” Scott Jaschik effectively persuades his audience of college level English instructors to prevent students from plagiarizing by using rhetorical choices such as irony, an appeal to authority, and jargon.

One rhetorical choice that Jaschik uses in order to enhance his purpose by shining a light into the minds of students is irony. Jaschik begins the article with a story about English instructor Kate Hagopian giving her students an assignment that they were required to turn in one version that was plagiarized and one version that was not plagiarized. Jaschik goes on to reveal, “Given the right to do so, they turn in essays with many direct quotes without attribution. Of course in their essays that are supposed to be done without plagiarism, she still finds problems -- not so much with passages repeated verbatim, but with paraphrasing or using syntax in ways that were so similar to the original that they required attribution” (Jaschik 262). The reason Jaschik uses this ironic story as the introduction to his article is because it directly relates to the purpose of the entire article. The story specifically shows the audience of instructors that students sometimes plagiarize without actually intending to. This connects to the purpose of the article because it effectiv...

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...ructors that he is knowledgeable of the subject at hand and convinces them to pay attention to the purpose of his article.

In conclusions, college level English instructors often run in to the issue of plagiarism when dealing with their students’ assignments. Therefore, these instructors are attempting to teach their students the ethics involved in writing. They hope that this will encourage their students to stop plagiarizing. Consequently, instructors must understand the ways students interpret plagiarism and find ways that correlate to this that will successfully end plagiarism. In Scott Jaschik’s article “Winning Hearts and Minds in War on Plagiarism,” he uses rhetorical choices such as irony, an appeal to authority, and jargon to efficiently persuade his audience of college level English instructors to find the best ways to prevent students from plagiarizing.