David, et.al.,

This could get to be fun.  Indeed I feel much better after reading David's
response.  Surely much better than the foul mood in which I intemperately
posted a reply to Verbie last night.  Verbie is a friend and I hope is
still one.

A discussion about plagiarism might be a useful exercise on this list and
that might also be fun.  Indeed I was thinking of that topic and Stephen
Ambrose, that apologist for the "greatest generation," right after I sent
off the reply to Verbie's post. I think the word plagiarism has two
related, but different meanings; there is the case of someone like Ambrose
who copies someone else's work in order to turn out bulk work of no
particular merit except that it makes him, Ambrose, a lot of money.  That
is the kind of plagiarism for which many of our students would be guilty if
and when they are caught.  Of course our students don't generally make a
lot of money on their stuff, but they do often get a degree which sort of
equates to the same thing [except when they chose to use their degree to
teach].  And the amount of work that we typically expect of them puts them
in much of the same frame of mind that Ambrose probably finds himself when
his publisher is reminding him that it is the end of the month and another
book about Ike's boys needs to hit the bookstands.  So they do what Ambrose
does and cut and paste together catchy prose from other folks.

There is another meaning, however, and that is when another's ideas are
taken and presented as one's own.  I consider that miscreation much more
egregious.  I suppose that is because I [we?] think original ideas are rare
and come only after a fair amount of hard work commonly called thinking.  I
don't know if Ambrose does this very much.  His field is history and I'm
not a historian.  I do think few have original ideas at the rate at which
Stephen Ambrose publishes books.

I guess I ought to get to the point here.  In a funny [wierd] way it is
this second meaning of plagiarism that we ought to be catching our students
in more often.  Whereas it is not so much original ideas, in the absolute,
that we expect from our students, but original-to-them ideas that they
develop.  And if we intervene in the development of these ideas at several
steps, plagiarism becomes less common and even the concern over proper
attribution fades somewhat.  Now, this requires more work and fewer papers
assigned.

Anyway, those were my thoughts on a Sunday evening.  I know,..., I should
get a life.

--Gene

At 09:19 AM 5/20/02 -0400, David Garrison wrote:
>Ah, Gene, now we see the confusion inherent in the system.
>
>You write, in response to Verbie Prevost's thoughtful discussion of the
>practical and responsible presentation of texts, digital and otherwise, "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." You then went on to say, "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."
>
>Someone, indeed I, did chide, though the object of my chiding was not Fritz.
>
>What I wrote, and I quote, was this: "[U]rban (pastoral? empirical?) legend
>or not, shouldn't Professor Levin's directly quoted (or copied and pasted)
>post to the raven have been in quotation marks?"
>
>Yigal Levin's post, not Fritz Efaw's, everyone might recall, started this
>discussion about the history of railroad guage widths. That post created
>the impression that it had been written by Yigal. In fact, however, as
>Fritz's response demonstrated--if one happened to follow the links Fritz
>provided--it had been lifted in its entirity from another, unspecified
>source.
>
>One use of quotation marks--or any other suitable, conventionally
>understand marks--it seems to me, is simply to signal to the reader(s)--in
>any medium worth using to communicate, even a "medium such as this"--that a
>multi-layered conversation is ongoing, that the text we're producing is
>embedded in a con-text. Yigal's post signaled to all of us something about
>railroad guage width, and perhaps also signalled that he found the subject
>interesting and amusing, but what it did not do was signal to us that it
>had been either forwarded from another source or lifted from another
>source. In other words, because it lacked any signal of its having been
>appropriated, it asked to be read in a way that was misleading. That
>misleading signal was the cause of my "ludicrous" concern.
>
>But, finally, believe it or not, I don't "care much about plagiarism in a
>medium such as this." I am not one of the "formalists"--at least I don't
>think I am; I'm not sure what you mean by that term as you use it here--and
>I am definitely not one of the wrist-slappers (you can ask my students). In
>fact, I think plagiarism is a very confused and confusing idea, sorely
>connected with notions of property and control and the abuse of power. What
>I do care about is that a text, especially one distributed to a thousand
>readers, whether they want it or not, signals itself as one thing when it
>is, most certainly, quite another.
>
>- David Garrison
>
>PS: My greeting, above, though I doubt that anyone cares at this point,
>except for the interpolation of "Gene," is an appropriation and
>modification of a line in Monty Python's "Search for the Holy Grail."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >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
> >[log in to unmask]
> >
>David Garrison
>Professor and Head
>Department of English (2703)
>University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
>615 McCallie Ave
>Chattanooga, TN 37403
>423 425 4238
>423 425 2282 (fax)
>[log in to unmask]

Eugene Bartoo
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
[log in to unmask]