After seeing common errors among the thousands of projects, papers and theses they graded, Rhonda Rhodes, professor of technology and operations, and Joyce Kupsh, professor emeritus, saw a need for an easy-to-use guide to writing.
Together, they created: “Report Writing: A Survival Guide,” which taps into their combined 60-plus years of teaching experience to answer the most commonly asked questions and offer insights to fix simple mistakes.
“We found students did not have a good source for written communication guidelines,” Rhodes says. “The Survival Guide provides the guidelines in only 100 small pages with examples and checklists.”
The book was so successful that they released a second edition, with an updated section that explains more about plagiarism. The edition is catching national headlines, and they were recently interviewed on “The Michael Dresser Show” in New York City.
Rhodes believes the national attention demonstrates that plagiarism in written communication is something the entire country is thinking about.
“Plagiarism is no longer something that is ignored,” she says. “Companies are being fined millions of dollars, people are losing their jobs or going to jail, and students are being expelled.
It is critical that we are aware of the definition of plagiarism, and that plagiarism -intentional or accidental – is no longer being ignored.”