Re: Plagiarism/Lists

[Linda Bergmann <bergmann@umr.edu>]

What this suggests is that the definititon of "plagiarism" is not an
absolute, but situation and discipline-dependent. For example, my first
experience with interdisciplinary grant writing introduced me to the
concept of "boilerplate"--stuff that is just downloaded and swapped from
document to document.  

This can lead to the very dangerous speculation that what teachers may
consider  individual work, students consider boilerplate--i.e. the files.




At 10:16 AM 3/2/98 -0600, you wrote:
>I must share my "favorite" plagiarism war story to emphasize that it is
>not only students who do not understand plagiarism.
>
>We had a rather impressive display about the process of writing a research
>paper on a enclosed bulletin board outside our door.  A highly acclaimed
>professor in the humanities came in and demanded 40 copies for his
>junior/senior/grad. level course.  I explained that the display copy was
>generic and that we customize for individual faculty; moreover, we supply
>a single desk copy that the department reproduces.  He said he didn't have
>time to bother thinking about customizing, but he would take a generic
>copy and review it.
>
>A day later he came back with the generic copy, said, "Well, good stuff,
>but they ought to get that someplace before they get to me.  But I really
>liked what you said about plagiarism, so I cut that out and gave it to the
>students."  Without permission and without credit (I learned later), he
>had plagiarized our document on plagiarism!  And, of course, he received a
>teaching award that year--
>
>Pat McQueeney
>Writing Consulting:  Faculty Resources
>KU's Writing Across the Curriculum Service
>(913) 864-4232
>http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~writingc/index.html
>
>

Linda S. Bergmann
Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum
University of Missouri-Rolla
Rolla, MO  65409

(573) 341-4685

bergmann@umr.edu