This collection is a timely intervention in national debates about what constitutes original or plagiarized writing in the digital age. Somewhat ironically, the Internet makes it both easier to copy and easier to detect copying.

The essays in this volume explore the complex issues of originality, imitation, and plagiarism, particularly as they concern students, scholars, professional writers, and readers, while also addressing a range of related issues, including copyright conventions and the ownership of original work, the appropriate dissemination of innovative ideas, and the authority and role of the writer/author. Throughout these essays, the contributors grapple with their desire to encourage and maintain free access to copyrighted material for noncommercial purposes while also respecting the reasonable desires of authors to maintain control over their own work.

Both novice and experienced teachers of writing will learn from the contributors' practical suggestions about how to fashion unique assignments, teach about proper attribution, and increase students' involvement in their own writing. This is an anthology for anyone interested in how scholars and students can navigate the sea of intellectual information that characterizes the digital/information age.

"At long last, a discussion of plagiarism that doesn't stop at 'Don't do it or else,' but does full justice to the intellectual interest of the topic!"
---Gerald Graff, author of Clueless in Academe and 2008 President, Modern Language Association

"Eisner and Vicinus have put together an impressive cast of contributors who cut through the war on plagiarism to examine key specificities that often get blurred by the rhetoric of slogans. It will be required reading not only for those concerned with plagiarism, but for the many more who think about what it means to be an author, a student, a scientist, or anyone who negotiates and renegotiates the meaning of originality and imitation in collaborative and information-intensive settings."
---Mario Biagioli, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, and coeditor of Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science

"This is an important collection that addresses issues of great significance to teachers, to students, and to scholars across several disciplines. . . . These essays tackle their topics head-on in ways that are both accessible and provocative."
---Andrea Lunsford, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of English, Claude and Louise Rosenberg Jr. Fellow, and Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University and coauthor of Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing

Read Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age Online

Paperback: 280 pages
Authors: Martha Vicinus (Editor), Caroline Eisner (Editor)
Publisher: Digital Culture Books (March 10, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0472050346
ISBN-13: 978-047205034

Caroline Eisner was the Associate Director of the Sweetland Writing Center at the University of Michigan from 2001 to 2007. In 2007, she became the Academic Dean at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont.

Martha Vicinus is Director of the Sweetland Writing Center and Eliza M. Mosher Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan.

Digital Culture Books is a collaborative imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the University of Michigan Library. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

INTRODUCTION:

Across university and college campuses, writing centers face questions about plagiarism. All too often these queries are framed in narrow, judgmental terms that leave little room for either the teacher or the student to understand the complexities of permission, attribution, and copyright. Teachers find themselves placed in an adversarial position in relation to students, as if all writing assignments involved the risk of plagiarism. This collection of essays addresses not only such immediate problems, but also a larger, more central, argument that academic integrity goes beyond the classroom and that any discussion of plagiarism must involve the current questions regarding “fair use” and copyright. It is no accident that public debates about plagiarism have coincided with efforts to limit access to copyrighted material.

On the one hand, we face the exponential increase in readily available information from the Web, and, on the other, threats of property-rights litigation and increasingly limited access to this material. Adding to the mix, postmodern literary theory reminds us that nothing is wholly original—that we depend on remixing and reusing the past, adding to or remaking old plots, insights, and ideas. Across disciplines and fields, we find that plagiarism is not a simple wrong; a full understanding of its role in contemporary intellectual life depends on a broad approach that includes notions of what is original and what role imitation plays in the creation of new texts. As numerous contributors remind us, at no time has copyright law guaranteed complete control over an individual work.

Within the university we rightly have a profound investment in responsible, independent, intellectual work, lest we undermine the very nature of our profession. Both students and researchers can be tempted to Page  2short-circuit, via unacknowledged use of others’ work, the necessary groundwork in learning; most of those who succumb do not get caught. In the past, before the Web, probably even fewer were caught. Stealing or buying the work of others, however, undermines the credibility of the written word and damages the open and free exchange of ideas.

In the past few years, we have witnessed a rash of high-profile plagiarism cases, ranging from a Harvard undergraduate’s plagiarized novel to fabrication of evidence in the biomedical field. How do we conserve and inculcate a tradition of ethical research and writing standards, while acknowledging and taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by new technologies? How can students be taught to evaluate sources and then to credit the authors appropriately? Why have so many experienced researchers been found guilty of stealing from others?

The essays selected for this anthology address these and other questions from different points of view. For, as its table of contents reveals, issues of authorial authority and control over writing cut across every area of study. We have organized the essays to highlight the ways in which experts across many fields, ranging from the fine arts to physics, are grappling with these issues. However different the starting point, each author shares a concern about the increasingly angry public debate for or against file sharing, fair use, and plagiarism.

We have organized the essays to speak to each other about this issue, as well as about shared pedagogical concerns. We hope that both novice and experienced teachers will learn from the practical and concrete suggestions about how to fashion unique assignments, to teach about proper attribution, and to increase students’ involvement in their own writing. At its core, this is an anthology for anyone interested in the process of learning. How can we encourage the free and ethical exchange of ideas? How can we encourage students, so accustomed to digital sharing, to understand citation practices, free use, and the legitimate ownership of ideas? These seemingly local concerns are nevertheless also implicated in larger national issues because access to and use of trustworthy information and writing are, of course, fundamental to public discourse in a democratic society. ...

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