Blog Post #9 - Brittany Means


While reading Chapter 8 of The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that tutors are the ones doing the research on tutoring. It seems like so many fields have research that is conducted by people outside the actual field, or people in the field who aren’t the ones actually applying the information. Especially in terms of tutoring where all of the work is personal, up close, and specifically tailored to a case by case basis, it seems vital for a researcher to be in tune with the practice of tutoring.

I was intrigued by the essay referenced in this chapter that aimed to raise awareness about the “ethical considerations and pedagogical implications of using plagiarism detection software.” I recently had a student come in and ask if it was alright if he had a 90% original score from Turnitin. I’m honestly not very familiar with the system. I felt that 90% seemed like a good score, but I was not sure if that was enough to avoid being accused of plagiarism. The idea that 90% could be too low seemed outlandish, but the fact that I still hesitated to give him the go ahead speaks to the paranoia that comes with this system of checking.

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