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The Course of Words

Blair flare fair

Copyright 2003 Ben S. Pollock

Monday, Dec. 22, 2003. Let’s look at plagiarism, one of journalism’s big topics in 2003, culminating in the revelations around Jayson Blair.

Plain definition is that plagiarism is thievery, the taking of others’ words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs — the ideas of others — as one’s own. Theft. So obvious and so wrong

Students in my upper-class ethics class understood this clearly this past spring. Stealing is forbidden in the 10 commandments. So I turned it on its head, how they — and I — stole ideas, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs rather a lot. What is downloading music about? What is soft attribution in papers or student publications? What is the purpose of a press release, when so many of the journalism students are in the advertising/PR concentration?

Yes, this messed with their heads. Students in earlier journalism classes needed specifics of the rights and wrongs because when it’s stealing no longer is obvious.

In popular culture, musicians doing covers — or sampling — of the songs of others is legit, it’s even a sign of respect, an homage. Not plagiarism. Spin-offs are OK; they’re flattering. Not plagiarism. Currently the Ron Howard, a great and legitimate director, has out The Missing, which most critics acknowledge is an update, or a retelling, of an earlier Western, The Searchers. Not plagiarism.

“Immature poets borrow; mature ones steal” is more or less the quote from T.S. Eliot but other classic writers acknowledged the same. Shakespeare, or whoever passed for him, borrowed from histories and mythologies of the time, heavily.

Is fiction wholly invented, or autobiography/memoir disguised, to greater or lesser degree? Is stealing from truth plagiarism.

Press releases. Marketers would be insulted if their copy wasn’t borrowed as background information, and surprised if the material was fully attributed. When’s the last time, outside of Cook’s Illustrated or Organic Gardening magazines that you saw food or growing advice based on a named specialist, expert or the writer’s own trial-and-error. Just-cuzes and other sorts of hypotheticals are whole-cloth cheating. But accepted.

But get sloppy with footnotes, and you’ll be mocked out of the academy

As we get closer to blatant plagiarism, the offense crosses the line and looks like stealing. Or maybe just laziness. Plagiarism is not black-and-white, though shallow ethicists would have us think so. Deep ethicists know it’s murky.

As for me, I cringe at plagiarism because I value originality. I run away from ideas that I run across that got there before my imagination. I want to be original, or what’s the point of saying anything? In fact, being original is so important that it’s what blocks me: What can I write that’s different?

Other people go at it differently. It may be easier for them, or just different. -30-

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