Michael et al:

I'm coming into this conversation a little late, so if I misstate (or step on toes), apologies.

First - Michael, thanks for engaging in this dialogue. It's a conversation long overdue. As people here have suggested, we've always worked on issues of research practices, text use, and so on. As you suggest, these practices have also become of interest to the media in recent years - I think that's due to a variety of factors, but that's another topic for a different day.

Regarding media coverage, though, I was quite struck by something that you wrote:

>The 'media machine' is very receptive to "cheating students getting caught" and much less receptive to "teaching proper citation skills while ensuring that the voice of the student appears loud and clear in the paper" - this does not mean that we are pandering to the former media image, but it does mean that you are much more likely to hear about an incident of academic dishonesty than you are to hear about a strong 'teaching moment'.<

I think that you're absolutely right about that. I also think that the 'media machine' has been fueled by quotes like these from TurnItIn generally, and John Barrie specifically:

“'Professors are kidding themselves if they think they can always sense plagiarism,'” [TurnItIn.com Founder and CEO John] Barrie said.
And:
“TurnItIn is adding value back to the degree because it’s allowing the honest students to succeed.”
And:
“Plagiarism is on the rise with the help of the Internet and its easy access to unfiltered sources….
And:
“While academic cheating is nothing new, access to the Internet has elevated it to new levels.”
And:
“About 30 percent of everything submitted contains significant plagiarism.”

(I have citations for all of these, of course - if anyone is interested, I will happily forward them.)

I don't post those to say, "In your face!" about your desire to shift the ways that we work with these issues related to textual citation - I mean that very sincerely. You all (TurnItIn, that is) are a prominent voice in these discussions because you're among the sources to which media turn. If you want to shift the way that people think about plagiarism/source use, this is a goal that we all obviously share with you. Is it possible to go about it collaboratively in some way? At this point, the public face of TurnItIn seems to be quite different than the one we (and readers of America's daily newspapers quoted above) are seeing in this discussion.