Monday, September 3, 2012
Project I Topic
One constuct of academic writing that interests me is the construct of plagarism. I have heard it said that no piece of writing is truly original because writers are constantly borrowing things or influenced by other writers and their work. However, this contradicts what society considers plagarism. To me, this is like saying that plagarism is acceptable in some cases and not acceptable on other cases, such as writing a paper for a college class. Therefore, I feel that investigating this construct to see what plagarism means to different people and why they feel that way about it, what is considered plagarism and what is not, and if the concept of plagarism is changable would be interesting and useful to research and write about.
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Hi Jessica,
ReplyDeleteGood topic proposal. Plagiarism is a very loaded issue to work with so it's important that you realize just how many different approaches you could take with this issue. To new students, I think the concept of plagiarism can seem very outdated, especially in light of all the "borrowing" that happens without citation in online spaces: Facebook, Youtube, etc. So one interesting approach might be comparing academic culture with internet culture. What are the differences in regards to plagiarism and citation practices. Remember that when you're talking about plagiarism you're also always talking about "appropriation"-that is, the borrowing of someone else's thoughts or ideas. Academic cultures have cultivated very strict regulations for appropriation strictly because they "trade" in intellectual capital. Their ideas are what they "make"- their product in a capitalist society.
So there are a lot of different ways to go with this and as you research you'll srart finding some of those paths. Just be sure that you always remember to think about who the authors are talking to and for what purpose. Depending on the audience, a piece on plagiarism can be very different. A good place to start your research might be Rebbeca Moore Howard's bibliography page-note that she has multiple entries dedicated to plagiarism.
http://www.rebeccamoorehoward.com/bibliographies
Oh. One last thing. When you identify a construct, you want to show how it is evident in our culture-one way to do this with plagiarism is to actually bring in and analyze university policies or class policies on plagiarism. You might even look at some of your own syllabi and bring those in as primary resources.
Great start!