Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511200008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some wrote stories for class and let their teachers send them in. Others submitted stories on their own and included pictures drawn with the finest Crayolas.
We loved going through the entries, reading bits and pieces aloud to each other in a corner of the newsroom, a welcome diversion from the political stories that plagued our days.
Finally, we voted on the winners and made our announcements.
That's when the truly scary part came in:
After we published the entries, we learned that both of our first-place winners had plagiarized parts of their stories.
We moped and brooded and worried about the state of America's youth.
Who would teach them? Had television sapped their ability to think on their own?
Then we received an apology from one of the students, written in careful cursive. In this original work, she said she knew she had done something wrong, and that she wanted the person who had earned first prize to receive it.
We started to feel a little better.
We received letters from a class that participated in the contest.
"I worked hard on my story and used my own imagination," wrote one little boy from Newbern. His classmates echoed his comments.
A Christiansburg librarian asked a reporter here to talk to fourth-graders about plagiarism.
The classes asked good questions.
Could you go to jail for plagiarizing?
What if you take only one paragraph and nothing else?
By the end of the lesson, they knew a lot about plagiarism, even though some couldn't pronounce the word.
The issue spurred a discussion in the newsroom, too.
By the time it was over, we were worrying about the state of America's adults.
A communications teacher at Virginia Tech and Radford University said there is such a supply of ready-made speeches floating around that she requires her students to speak on only the most recent of topics, to ensure that what they hand in is their own work.
Co-workers talked about reporters from other papers who had been fired for copying a book review out of The New Yorker, stealing pieces of a syndicated column and ripping off parts of a news story.
Milli Vanilli was stripped of its Grammy Award after the duo admitted other singers had performed in their place on a best-selling album.
Case after case. How will the grownups learn their lessons? Who's going to teach them?
What kind of example are they setting?
In the corner of our newsroom sits a lone red trick-or-treat bag. Attached to the outside is a white piece of paper that says "First Place."
Maybe we should leave it there a while longer still.
Maybe that will be our lesson.
by CNB