It’s All Greek – Do You Copy?

Astral Facts, April 2012
Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

It’s all Greek -Do You Copy? 

These days, issues of academic integrity seem to be a common topic of discussion.  With more and more on-line courses and online existences, one wonders who is taking the tests or writing the content coming from the other end of the ether way. 

Students see the exchange of talents merely as good business techniques – “I’ll do your math homework if you’ll do my English essay” is generally regarded as cooperative learning as they pool skills and resources.  After all, on Law & Order Jack McCoy and Michael Cutter called in expert witnesses and used the ADA's (assistant district attorneys) availabilities to do much of the work and research for them to present in their trial performances.  It’s just good business in a transactional based culture!

Based on the Greek approaches of ethos, pathos, and logos identified at the root of dramatic themes in the broad field of the humanities sciences, we might be able to more clearly understand the nature and essence of the plagiarism phenomena.  Although such copying and falsification has been occurring since as long as history reaches back, the proliferation though current advances in technology is quite over whelming in many areas of modern living and culture even beyond the academic fields.

We could view the classification of some major types of plagiarism in a taxonomy as follows:

Theo-sauros.  (aka T-sauros Rex).  This technique involves substituting a variety of words from the original source in order to disguise the original phrasing.   The Theo-sauros will do this to make the content appear original and more godly (Theos) or royal (Rex).  Thus, phrases such as “common sense” will be changed to “ordinary feeling” or “communal sagacity.”   Of course, someone using “basic intelligence” would recognize that changing so many words and phrases will end up distorting the overall coherence of the writing.

Pseudopigios. This technique aims to lend credibility to the writer’s own unsubstantiated beliefs or opinions.  (This dates back to the ancient practice of pseudepigrapha when people would try to pass off their personal views as coming from Noah, Abraham, and even Adam and Eve themselves.)  The pseudopigio will make up credible sounding sources, usually bogus websites or non-existent online issues of accepted sources like Scientific American, which would not have page numbers for cross referencing.

Downloadios.  This technique involves the use of websites that sell or exchange fully written papers on a wide range of topics.  The websites have a disclaimer that the paper is for review only, but when students are paying as much as $10 per page, chances are that the “review tool” ends up being the actual paper.  Often the Theo-saurus will use this technique as a starting point.

Domestios, Fratios, or Sororios.   In this technique, known by several names, the writer will merely put his or her name on works done by a family member or close associate who has taken the same or similar courses.   Very few if any changes are made by the writer.  A variety of this is the Superidio, where the writers take their own writing done previously and make slight alterations (often not more than changing the date and course name) to submit as new work.

Spectato or Spectreios.  Sometimes Anglicized as “ghost writing,” this technique is an offshoot of the previous technique, but done under contract or by request.  Sometimes this is disguised as “peer editing” when the writer asks for help with a rough draft, outline, or paper topic and the other person produces the bulk of the final content.  Colleagios is the version that pools resources to trade expertise such as a native speaker editing and rewriting a non-native speaker's paper in exchange for the non-native speaker completeing a math or engineering assignment, depending on expertise.  The exchange might be "non-academic" such as a student in a trades program repairing a car or upgrading a computer in exchange for a writing assignment paper.

Cuspidios.  In this technique, the writer merely expectorates content directly from lecture notes or class discussion, sometimes even from the same class the paper is written for.  Usually the original notes are not taken clearly, so the content may be a bit garbled as the writer merely repeats what has been heard or understood as if it were his or her original thinking.

Oblivio.  This particular practice often includes one or more of the methods mentioned above without the practitioners recognizing that they are violating standards of academic integrity.  Such people often have been doing this as a matter of habit or they are so used to seeing those around them plagiarize that the practices seem “normal” behavior.

Insidios.   In this technique, the writer deliberately restructures sentences, reverses the order of list points or details, or even cites a small portion of the original source as a means of deliberately presenting the source commentary, insight, and/or conclusions as his/her own original thinking.

The terminology may be Greek, but the bartering concepts of "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours," "the ends justify the means," "all's fair in love and war," and other such euphemisms and aphorisms seem to be part of the syllabus of Basic Survival 101.  

Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.