Topics in writing can be overwhelmingly abundant and focusing on just one can be quite critical. It is my consideration that aside from organization (in terms of composition), there can not be any topic as important as plagiarism. To know how to write and write correctly may I add, is extremely essential and one can never forget that organization is as essential as knowing how to write, but credibility is the back bone of the aftermath and with no credibility, technique nor organization is worth anything.

As an educator I can see that we as teachers spend time teaching how to write but not give much focus on the implications of cheating and the different ways of cheating that there are. If we were to focus on plagiarism as much as we do on grammar, students may not feel as compelled to cheat as much as it occurs. Focusing on plagiarism is one thing, but it can not be only that. We must try to understand why students plagiarize and focus more on ways that we can work around those reasons.  With these multi- genre techniques, I intend to give creative insights of how we, as teachers, can focus on ways to prevent plagiarism from invading our classrooms.

As teachers, we are all explorers, learners and researchers. The more we explore topics that deal with teaching writing, the more success we can expect from our teaching style and our students’ acquirement of the writing process.  By having more success in the outcome of our students compositions, the more exciting writing learning can become and that is all every teacher is searching for.  These works will bring just that exciting ways of making composition learning easier as well as truthful when taking it step by step.

I feel fortunate to be advising about this topic and I would like to thank all of the researchers such as Robert Harris, Felicia Lee as well as Jill Frey for being so clear and direct in their researches. Using them as a stepping stone in my own research about plagiarism cleared many doubts and opened my eyes to new ways of teaching students about plagiarism.

Sincerely,
Lidsay X. Centeno Vega