Dear All:
I wish I could come to Gimli and talk about this issue... and many
others... but I can't be there this year. We all need a better idea than
"plagiarism" to frame the connection of reading and writing, and CASLL
is just the group to work on it.
I missed the Cs altogether too, but got to an excellent conference at
University of Michigan last September. It was called Originality,
Imitation, and Plagiarism--a nice list of concepts in itself. The
program is still online at
http://141.211.177.75/swc/conference/program/. The lineup of speakers
was amazing. Their insights on Originality and Imitation looked at those
ideas in terms of history, economics, law, culture, literature, language
development, etc. etc. In that perspective, plagiarism thus seemed like
a small-minded concern, though also more understandable as behaviour.
Michigan will publish a book based on the conference talks, and I'm
already looking forward to it. The thoroughly descriptive bibliography
provided for participants ahead of time is also a treasure
(http://141.211.177.75/swc/conference/bibliography/).
Margaret
University of Toronto
Russ Hunt wrote:
>Thanks for mentioning it, Sandy.
>
>
>
>>Some of you should dig out Russ Hunt's work on plagiarism.
>>His questioning approach opened my eyes and gave me a lot to
>>think about. I also just came back from CCCC where another
>>session on plagiarism questioned the academic perspective (it
>>is something bad, needing to be rooted out and the writer
>>punished). They used a lot of digital text from the internet
>>and showed how the "sharing" of material is common and
>>accepted.
>>
>>
>
>You don't have to dig my stuff out: slightly different versions
>are on my Web site and the Inkshed Newsletter.
>
>http://www.stu.ca/~hunt/4reasons.htm
>
>http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/nletta03/hunt.htm
>
>I wish I'd been to the Cs, for a number of reasons, of which
>missing that session is one. Sandy, do you have a reference so
>I could check out the folks who did the session?
>
>This is dead right:
>
>
>
>>I also see that my students do it mainly for two reasons:
>>they didn't leave enough time to write the report; they don't
>>know how to use sources well--how to integrate them properly
>>into a text. Both of those problems can, and should, be
>>better addressed in the classroom. An as has been said
>>here--plagiarism is particularly tough for ESL students, many
>>of whom have been taught that copying is a form of respect and
>>scholarship.
>>
>>
>
>As you might guess, though, I'd go further: in a fundamental
>sense 90% of my students are AESL (that is, Academic English as
>a Second Language) and posing plagiarism as a problem -- a
>deadly pitfall to be avoided -- for them is about as useful as
>posing the avoiding of grammatical malfeasance as the main thing
>for beginning writers to be concerned about.
>
>This is, or ought to be, about learning to use language
>effectively in context (a hint: context is everything. Come to
>Gimli next month and we'll talk).
>
>-- Russ
>St. Thomas University
>http://www.StThomasU.ca/~hunt/
>
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>
>For the list archives and information about the organization,
> its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to
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> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
>
--
Margaret Procter, Ph.D.
University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support
15 King's College Circle, Toronto ON M5S 3H7
416 978-8109; FAX 416 971-2027
[log in to unmask]
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to
[log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties,
write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask]
For the list archives and information about the organization,
its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to
http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
