Re: Plagiarism/boilerplate

[Denise Rogers <dmr2899@usl.edu>]

>Plagiarism, I would argue, is really a construct of the academy, the only
>place
>where there could be such a concept as "intellectual property." Maybe it's
>because we don't see ourselves as having any other kind of property, and
>in our
>culture no other group would care that much about "intellectual" property
>anyway.  The arts seem to have a similar code of ethics (I just saw a
>newspaper
>article describing a suite against the producers of "The Full Monty" for
>>ripping off a theater play with similar scenes).

Lynnell,

While I understand your stance, I'm not completely comfortable with the
idea that intellectual property isn't worth at least as much protection as
other kinds of property. As a writer, I have to say that I think
appropriating someone else's poem or story or plot and presenting it as if
it were your own work is not a tribute, but a comment on the plagiarist's
unwillingness to invest energy into the plagiarist's own talents.

If we do away with any kind of guidelines of distinguishing our ideas from
the ideas of the people we quote, we do ourselves a disservice. My students
have really good ideas that they struggle for (sometimes I think their
observations are better than the ones I have read in literary criticism),
and I certainly want them to receive credit for those ideas! So I do see
something like the MLA citation system as one that allows the student to
show that they have read others' opinions, thought about them, and
rejected, accepted, or (and this is the important part) invented new ways
of thinking about the topic. I don't want them to think that all writing is
about is ferreting out the good sources and then slapping them together
with a sentence here or there (and these are the clunky sentences that
demonstrate that these are not their ideas and that they don't have a very
good grasp of them) as glue; that doesn't even work for quiltmaker-artists.
They want some signature on the piece--something new or unique for which
they can be praised.


>
>It might be interesting to see across industry whether, in fact, there are
>lots
>of conventions for what we would call "legitimate plagiarism." In fact, I
>wouldn't be surprised if somehow getting someone else to write or work on your
>stuff isn't considered a bona fide survival skill.

I think editors are an example of "legitimate plagiarists," if you will, in
the sense that they fix the problems that writers are too busy, too lazy,
or too inexperienced to deal with. But the  bigger issue is whether
reliance on someone else to do that for you causes students give up on
learning how to do it for themselves.I hear so many people say, "I can't do
this; I can't learn that." And it isn't true, in the main. It does take
work, and it is sometimes "boring" to learn the rules, but it's not an
impossible hurdle for everyone. Some people really can learn how to
punctuate or to write better prose.

>  I have had at least one
>student with a learning disability who worked very hard on her papers, did
>thorough research, wrote and revised them and then took them to her father to
>have them "polished."  She really did do the lion's share of the work --
>and in
>fact it still suffered from some of the organizational problems she had
>generated..  But it was generally flawless, professional sounding prose.

I had a student who had been in a coma for 6 months and who basically had
to start from ground zero. The progress he made was astonishing. Yes, he
had to take certain courses more than once. He was in the writing center
with every essay, and still it was a struggle. But to him, it was a point
of honor that his work be his own. I'm not saying I have a problem with the
learning disabled student who takes the essay to the father, but I wonder
why the student couldn't also get tutored, too, to make the work
"polished." And I wonder whether the student could have talked with the
instructor about the problem. That would be riskier, perhaps, but it would
be an opportunity to instruct the instructor.

>I am sure when she does go into professional social work (her chosen
>major) she will wisely enlist the help of a friend, companion, or colleague to
>help her clean up reports before she turns them in, and I don't imagine her
>supervisor will really care.
>

I don't know that that is always true; it certainly hasn't been true in the
companies and law firms I've worked in. In a very busy work atmosphere,
people do not often have the time to go behind others and check their work
(having worked in a law office, I can tell you that no one had time to look
at their own briefs, memos, etc., much less anyone else's). People resent
it when they are forced to watch out for other people's errors, and bosses
certainly don't like hiring employees who can't cover for *them*. Having
people "fix" your prose for you doesn't help you in the long run because
you may not find the accomodating colleague, friend, spouse, etc. who can
do it for you within the time frame you need it in. And in many interviews
these days, candidates are called upon to write something impromptu. I
think it's fine to be honest with the employer about your skills  (even if
you have dyslexia). At least, then, you aren't put into an adversarial
position with you employer when he or she looks at your work and says,
"Hey, what gives?" Or "You represented yourself in a way that suggested you
could handle all the aspects of the job, including proofreading."



>I guess I'm not surprised then that students don't have any ethical
>problems with
>some forms of plagiarism since the ethical positions of many industries
>don't see
>an ethical problem with it.

I don't know that "many" industries don't have an ethical problem with it.
I know that in the positions I have held in law firms and in the sciences,
it has been very important to credit ideas to certain people or certain
departments. Raises and promotions have depended on getting your name
attached to your work.


>I'm not sure that the real problem the Internet
>presents us with is just the unusual accessibility to texts as much as it the
>"authorlessness" feel to the Internet itself; it seems to have no owner/author
>and our society is promoting it with such democrati abandon --- it's
>(virtually)
>free!  anyone can get on it!  anyone can print anything on it!  Nothing about
>your "real" identity (bound by race, class, or gender) will "interfere"
>with the
>promotion and circulation of your text!  Everyone has access to the same
>material!

Yes, and sometimes it's worth exactly what you pay for it, which in some
cases is nothing and others is $19.95 or $24.95 a month.


Denise Rogers
University of Southwestern Louisiana

Denise
drogers@linknet.net