Researching Plagiarism and Technology in Second Language Writing: “Becomings”

Abstract

This dissertation is an experimentation in plugging in the work of Deleuze (1990, 1994, 1995), Deleuze and Guattari (1987, 1983, 1994) to create new concepts and methods in educational research. In doing so, I experiment in ‘the real’ through the process of learning, by designing, conducting, and reporting a qualitative empirical study on how second language (L2) writers in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program engage with technology in their academic writing, and how plagiarism may, or may not, relate to this process. As such, the research objectives of this study can be understood as: 1) to think differently about the interconnections between plagiarism and technology in L2 writing; and 2) to see what happens to the research when we do so. At the heart of this study, and forming the onto-epistemological lens for inquiry, is a philosophy of immanence, transcendental empiricism, difference, and the actual/virtual. Additional concepts -- assemblage, becoming, affect, rhizome, molar/molecular, order-word, smooth/striated, event, learning, nomad, and war machine – are deployed to reconceptualize how plagiarism and technology shape L2 students’ writing, as well as the treatment of plagiarism within academic learning and educational research. In more concrete terms, this study was conducted at a university-affiliated EAP program designed for international students who hold conditional-admission to their respective degree programs. Seven students and their teachers were recruited over the course of two semesters. Data sources include ongoing in-depth interviews, document analysis of students’ drafts, screen-cast recordings of the students’ writing process, and a researcher diary. Rhizoanalysis, a Deleuzian inspired non-method (Masny, 2016), was used to read the data and map connections between elements. Five cartographic mappings in lieu of ‘findings’ are presented. These mappings do not attempt to provide a complete picture of reality represented in the data, but instead seeks to disrupt and problematize, and then create open space to think of what might be happening and how it might be happening differently. Seemingly straightforward ‘data’ is complicated in terms of: 1) the affective force of plagiarism; 2) the conditions for learning; 3) digital-tools and plagiarism detection; 4) the materiality of text; and 5) researcher-becoming. Consistent with the call for concept creation to generate new thinking, I propose the concept of virtual-plagiarism to un-do our habit of tracing texts (as a response to alleged plagiarism) and move towards mapping the elements, intensities, forces, and flows by which plagiarism is actualized. Put to work, the concept of virtual-plagiarism de/reterritorializes both the student writers’ assemblage and the researcher assemblage, and ultimately disrupts the pedagogic and research practices in L2 academic writing that have long bound the issue of plagiarism to student ethics and/or student aptitude and intention. Just as this project aspires to rethink how plagiarism and technology shape L2 students’ writing and how this phenomenon can be researched, it also invites the reader to follow suit and reimagine how Deleuze- inspired methods and concepts can affect (their own) teaching and educational research practices.