From the Mind of a Writer: Plagiarism Controversies and When IS Plagiarism Okay?

The Chris Anderson Plagiarism Controversy and Jonah Lehrer’s “Self Plagiarism” are two polar examples of the ways in which plagiarism is used in today’s digital age. Because of the knowledge availability given to us by the internet, some people have taken to abusing such power, and as in the scenarios above, do so to better themselves.

To me, plagiarism is still what it once was when I first heard about it: a student’s laziness to create their own words, or to attribute the proper credit due to the original author. Reading these stories, however, have opened me up to another possibility: malicious and selfish intent. Because the men above came from a place of high authority (Anderson, an editor and journalist for Wired Magazine, and Lehrer a well known journalist for NY Times), society expects from them a certain moral, to hold themselves up to a particular standard given the position their work allows them. To me, a student’s plagiarism is unlikely comparable to that of a journalist whose articles reach thousands of consumers. The larger of an audience you have, the more responsibility you should hold yourself to when you write.

Let’s concentrate on the case of Jonah Lehrer. The concept “Self-Plagiarism” never once occurred to me, especially since many of us have been known to self-plagiarize. In the case of those who write creatively as a hobby, this is even more so the case, where we’ve scrapped old edits and then resurrected them when the need suited us. In this case, self-plagiarism is quite harmless. In the case of Lehrer, however, once that work is published, taking it and using parts of it in a completely unrelated publication, one separate from that of its original placement, can easily lead to issues. On the one hand, there is no original author to offend or discredit, but on the other hand two separate publications with the same exact articles (even paragraphs or recycled sentences) can fall back negatively on both publications. This reflects unprofessionalism on the part of the author responsible.

Plagiarism, in my opinion, most certainly gains its level of severity from the intent of its user. For example, where CNN and Times’ columnist Fareed Zakaria plagiarized similar ideas of a historian Jill Lepore, there are instances where plagiarists steal entire sentences and paragraphs of work word for word without citation, as in the case of Chris Anderson.

For Fareed Zakaria, I believe sharing in another’s ideas is a less condemnable form of plagiarism, especially because humans as one single entity share a plethora of ideals, values, and ultimately concepts that will occasionally intersect. Human ideas are a much more difficult and intangible source to persecute under plagiarism, whereas deliberate instances of plagiarism (whereby the perpetrator seeks to steal) would be a worse case.

As a writer of novels myself, most authors know that all good ideas have been done before. In one South Park spoof “The Simpsons Already Did It,” the episode saw its characters trying to come up with something wholly original before realizing every attempt had already been done by the Simpsons. When I first started writing, on my way to finishing my first fully drafted book, I had this wonderfully creative science fiction piece about blue aliens with yellow eyes taking over a dystopian Earth, they even had pets they binded with at birth—sound familiar? Of course it does. A large element of James Patterson’s “Avatar” is exactly that, and as soon as the movie hit theaters I felt forced to scrap my book (and I did).

Point is, there are realms in which plagiarism is entirely unintentional, where ideas just seemingly coexist between more than one human at a time. We think we’re being original, until another someone in our field of work gets published before us, and—adding fuel to the fire—simply just does it better.

Plagiarism—though it has its exceptions—may never be okay, but it is allowed to be incidental.

A Shirky Response: Wikipedia and “Ridiculously Easy Group Forming”

 

When we look at the ways in which societies from all over the world are able to connect, we almost instinctively begin to think of the tools that have enabled us to connect. The internet acts as our vessel to reach out to audiences we never imagined possible before. In relation to Shirky’s examples and analysis, we see that websites allow for average people outside the realms of a “Professional Organization” to rally together and form groups (including informal organizations of their own).

 

Concerning Wikipedia, the encyclopedia database is a collaborative effort from a variety of different people, thus different perspectives. Wikipedia acts as the tool for which researchers can gather and collect information. This collectiveness would not have been possible if not for Wikipedia as a website, sort of the way Flickr acts as a vessel for Photographers to collaboratively work, link, and connect together. Working towards one goal, in this way, allows for the audiences these sites are reaching out toward to gain some sense of digestibility. What I mean by that is with a countless number of people working toward a goal (as discussed in Chapter 1 of Shirky’s book: “Here Comes Everybody”), the audience they end up reaching begins to broaden itself, and more quality work and effort gets accomplished.

 

However, as Shirky points out in Chapter 2, not always do large groups working together reach their goals. In relation to Wikipedia, this may be true in that research may sometimes conflict, and information may not be accurate and so forth. It becomes a very difficult platform to keep track of, but at the same time, the workload is heavily decreased with group effort. I would assume that most of Wikipedia’s information comes from students and educators who have applied thorough research, and together they take “collective action” in a non-institutional way, without monetary profit or managerial push, but because they have merely decided to gather.

A Reflection to: Shirky’s “Organizing Without Organizations”

Shirky opens up his book with this “saga of the lost phone” to make an example out of how we, as humans, get tasks done in this day and age. The blatant point made is that things have changed. Shirky states that as sociable beings, we are able to complete a lot more and do so a lot more effectively because we—as a countless number of people—work together, instead of as our own separate individual. And because things have changed, technology has allowed us to simplify the means by which we organize to tackle a certain task.

With Shirky’s “StolenSidekick” example, we see that the more people who rally in effort to accomplish something…are the more people who rally to accomplish something. The actions of Evan, Ivanna, and Sasha are the catalysts for this social explosion and audience phenomenon: the availability of Evan’s social network (already equipped with a readership to boot) allowed him to open his own space of internet forum and gather forth a group of people who supported his cause. Thus, with the number of his internet supporters growing from the thousands to the millions, it was obvious that somewhere along the way, the ones who stopped him from achieving his end goal would naturally become the minority. As society has taught us, the minority opinion must eventually succumb to that of the majority or become the majority itself.

If we, as a group of people, all work toward one goal the probability of reaching said goal becomes that much more attainable. Evan’s internet force is a prime example of how social networking has changed the way we organize ourselves into a larger, majority group. With the help of the internet, we can easily reach a wider audience and pull them over to our side.

When Life Gives You Privilege, Should You Take It?

 When life gives you privilege should you take it and run? That’s the question Philip Guo, a Computer Science Graduate of MIT, once asked himself. As an Asian male with no former/proper experience in coding computers (or anything remotely related to CS), Philip entered his chosen major a blank state—not that his colleagues or professors ever did doubt his natural technologically savvy ability.

 

It’s less about the flattery or the confidence other people feel towards Guo, and more about why other people would assume his capabilities are based purely on looks. Does society project a particular standard onto its people? A kind of stereotype? Maybe typecast us into a perceived role?

 

Philip says this is present in the Computer Science major, but it goes so much farther beyond even this. And although this “privilege” works positively in his favor, he wonders how his female friends (or even any other ethnicity beyond Asian/White male) may work beyond the prevalent privilege Philip was simply handed. He’s suggesting that ability need not be based on physical attributes or societal roles—forget them. Because ability stems from hard work, dedication, and ultimately ability. There are no magical all seeing windows, unfortunately.

 

 

Here’s the original article, take a look: 
Slate, “Silent Technical Privilege”

A Reaction to McSweeney’s (1/15)

Possibly, these authors were looking to use self-deprecation to get their points across. This is more so prevalent in Cameron Dodd’s post “COLLEGE WRITING CLASS ASSIGNMENTS WITH REAL WORLD APPLICATIONS” than Robert Lanham’s “INTERNET-AGE WRITING SYLLABUS AND COURSE OVERVIEW“. Both seek to exemplify the current college student generation.

 

In a way, the contemporary world belongs to that of its contemporary inhabitants—a.k.a., the newest generation of writers should make no attempts to replicate that of, say, the work of literary classics. Not to say that the classics are outdated, or that its more formal and strict format isn’t something to appreciate. However, in order to make room for a fresh version of the classic writers from this era, this time period, from this modern and contemporary world we need to break the rules and create things from the unexplored: exactly what these two writers have done.

 

WHAT SHOULD BE: Dodd’s work implies that real world experience is a fresh way of not only representing a part of the contemporary world (kind of like a snapshot), but also to bring something unexpected and genre-breaking into the literary world. Each sentence listed is interesting because we, as readers, like the relatable and connect with an author/writer who doesn’t hold back, making the mundane into the entertaining.

 

WHAT COULD BE: The format of Lanham’s piece offers much to be appreciated. By now, we all now what a class syllabus looks like, and usually, it’s never fun. Lanham gives it a cool, sarcastic twist and embedded underneath all that sarcasm is exactly what shouldn’t go on inside a writing class. That’s what makes it interesting. Lanham takes our expectations and gives us these quirky, overdramatic, yet hilarious categories of prose that more than likely predict where the future of literature is headed. What scares me is that—somewhere, at some point in time in the very near future coming—this may actually become a class.

 

So the lesson? Read McSweeney’s and save the world.