Verbie Provost [on purpose, I know how her name is spelled] has suggested
that I, Gene Bartow [sic] [a possible typo; although she may not know how
my name is spelled] may be raising the specter of plagiarism by my comment
on e-mail plagiarism.  Whoa!  I suggested nothing of the sort.  In my
experience adequate attributions have been given in any number of ways on
e-mail exchanges including the use of quotation marks, but not limited to
such; much e-mail is of an informal, conversational nature and its
protocols have evolved in much the same way.  I made my comments in the
context in which someone, David Garrison I think, chided Fritz Efaw for not
using quotation marks in an ongoing conversation on this list about
railroad gauges.  Fritz didn't use the quotation marks and I had no trouble
separating his remarks from the remarks made by the other person in the
exchange and I really don't think anyone else did either.

I still don't think Fritz needed to use quotation marks in this
instance.  I think it ludicrous that anyone would care much about
plagiarism in a medium such as this.

I hope that this medium would continue to develop in the pragmatic ways
that it has to date, but I can see the formalists massing at the listservs
and the commissars of style slapping our wrists as we try to carry on our
conversations.

--Gene Bartoo, that's two o's; americanized from the French some 350 years
ago.  Gene Bartow, by the way, is much better known than I am having been
the basketball coach who replaced John Woodin at UCLA and later the coach
at UAB.  His last name is probably a latter-day version of Bartoo and that
might make us kin.  I don't know.



At 05:46 PM 5/18/02 -0400, you wrote:
>         Gene Bartow says, "Protocol in e-mail exchanges does not require
> quotation
>marks when quoting."  That poses an interesting question.  Why not?  Is the
>medium considered so informal that quotation marks are not required?  If
>quotation marks are not used, should some reference at least be given to
>indicate the source?  The internet has apparently created a interesting new
>environment for us with regard to the question of plagiarism.  Is there a
>difference between sharing something with a friend via e-mail (as in a
>personal letter) and "publishing" something on a "public" list like RAVEN?
>If it is okay to "publish" something in e-mail format without giving
>credit, is it okay to take something off e-mail or off the Web and not give
>credit?  Is it okay for students (we have had quite a few cases in the
>English Department) to just lift essays off the Web and turn them in for
>credit?  I think we are faced with a lot of questions about plagiarism and
>the internet.  The answers to some of the questions may seem obvious to us;
>others may cause us to struggle a bit.
>
>         In recent months the subject of plagiarism has evoked considerable
>national attention, much of it not internet related.  Take the cases of
>historians Ambrose and Goodwin, for example.  Is what they have done any
>big deal?  Or was the teacher at Piper High School in Kansas wrong (as
>administrators and the school board decided) to fail students for
>"plagiarism"?  Are these cases in any way related to the question of using
>quotation marks in e-mail?  Obviously, a lot of "stuff" that goes out on
>e-mail these days would be difficult to reference; it fits more into the
>category of "folk" creations.  But there are just as obviously many other
>cases when the old issue of plagiarism does surface and when there does
>seem to be some justification in voicing the usual concerns about "lifting"
>words without giving credit to the author.
>
>For an interesting recent discussion of plagiarism (not internet related),
>see "Etiquette and Ethics in the Plagiarism Hall of Fame"
>The Common Review, Vol. 1, No. 3, Spring 2002, pp. 5-6.
>
>Daniel Born, the editor of Common Review, comments on the issue of
>plagiarism as a result of recent news on the actions of historians Goodwin
>and Ambrose.  He says, "To many--I suspect most--Americans, the failure to
>enclose within quotation marks passages borrowed verbatim amounts at most
>to an infraction of etiquette.  Like, say, spreading one's butter with the
>wrong knife or taking a glass of Burgundy with a dinner of seared tuna."
>Born goes on to say, "Punishments delivered to the offender suggest the
>state of our confusion.  We vacillate between the scolding of the righteous
>and the shoulder shrug of postmodern ennui."
>
>Born ultimately comments that plagiarism is "a little less serious than a
>felony but a lot more troubling than offending Emily Post" and argues that
>we could do a much better job of monitoring it with an official Web site
>"that lists offenders and documents their specific abuses."  Until that is
>accomplished, he says, "All of us who toil as writers could carefully
>attend to our quotation marks--those tiny, but hardly insignificant,
>markers of a civilization."
>
>I will be glad to share a copy of the entire article with anyone interested.
>
>Verbie Prevost
>
>
>
>Verbie Lovorn Prevost
>Katharine Pryor Professor of English
>Director of English Graduate Studies
>University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
>615 McCallie Ave
>Chattanooga, TN  37403
>Phone: 423-755-4627
>Fax: 423-785-2282
>email: [log in to unmask]

Eugene Bartoo
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
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