Charles Hartman writes about being plagiarized: “Defining plagiarism is trickier than you might think, but most of the time we distinguish it from other kinds of copying (allusion, quotation) fairly easily: it’s plagiarism if the copyist hopes no one will notice.”
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
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Now W. G. Sebald in The Rings of Saturn often uses quotation without quotation marks, so that the reader is puzzled as to what he wrote and what he copied (not my favorite aspect of the book). But he wants you to be aware of that other writer and know that he's borrowing. This Hartman sentence requires intent, as in a criminal activity. If you accidentally copy your notes too hard, accidentally use someone else's words as your own, there isn't intent (ignorance is no defense of the law?)? Yet writers who accidentally under-attribute suffer consequences all the time. In the case of murder, intent is proven by any action to cover it up. His first clause is most accurate: Defining plagiarism is trickier than you might think. . .
It is, though knowing it when you see is less difficult.
The carelessness defense seems to work (if it ever does work) only at the highest levels of writing practice. With student writing, I think it’s important to distinguish between a faulty paraphrase of an acknowledged source (no intent to deceive) and genuine plagiarism. Then again, students who have been encouraged to “reword” without attribution (and with no intent to deceive) are indeed plagiarizing, without even knowing that what they’re doing is inappropriate. I’m amazed that some instructors encourage students in this practice.
Good post, Hartman's. Yours, too.
I reviewed an article by Felix Salmon not long ago on my blog, linked to his, and used his opening (two sentences) as my opening -- without attribution, because I thought it would be obvious and funny. But when nobody noticed, suddenly what I had done felt like plagiarism.
Because nobody noticed.
Good post, Michael.
I think many bits of parody and wit get lost online. But then again, maybe someone noticed, smiled, and left it there. Maybe someone’s trusting you to trust that the reader gets it. (I like being optimistic.)
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