Propositional Versus Encyclopedic Epistemology and Unintentional Plagiarism.

Unintentional plagiarism abounds at universities. The literature offers several explanations for students’ difficulties with acquiring standards of good academic practice. In this paper, I propose an alternative account: unintentional plagiarism can only be understood in the context of implicit but irreconcilable forms of knowledge. While higher education institutions mainly operate within the framework of <italic>propositional epistemology</italic>, institutions of primary and secondary education tend to furnish students with <italic>encyclopedic epistemology</italic>. Accordingly, universities and institutions of pre-college education tend to propagate conflicting assumptions regarding the nature of knowledge. Put simply, <italic>propositional epistemology</italic> is characterized by dialogue, agency and the exchange of ideas, which are ideally made explicit in academic writing. By contrast, <italic>encyclopedic epistemology</italic> tends to present knowledge monologically, leaving the scholarly conversation around it out. It is highly likely that the hardwired legacy of <italic>encyclopedic epistemology</italic> among students impedes the acquisition of the dialogism of academic inquiry at universities, resulting in cases of unintentional plagiarism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]