Re: Plagiarism/Lists

["Writing Consulting: Faculty Resources" <writingc@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>]

On Thu, 5 Mar 1998, Linda Bergmann wrote:

> 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.
> 
Boilerplate is a key illustration of how plagiarism is situation
specific--a good one to bring up, Linda.  Some accountants, for example,
will insert complete sections of legal code into their documents.  If they
were to put quotations around the "directly quoted" material, their
readers would assume that they were being tongue-in-cheek with them.  If
they paraphrase, on the other hand, they risk shifting a concept--into
court. They are using the discourse verbatim because they are speaking
with a shared voice.  Amy Devitt's chapter in Bazerman and Paradis' on
writing in the professions suggests some of this, but there's a chapter in
Matalene's *Worlds of Writing* I think that deals with the function of a
shared voice in such cases. Maybe someone out there can recall the
article.

The situation-specific issue emphasizes the need for students to
understand the *why* of crediting sources. 


> >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
> 

Writing Consulting:  Faculty Resources
KU's Writing Across the Curriculum Service
(913) 864-4232
http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~writingc/index.html