Astral
Facts, January 2015
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.
Copy
Cat Tastrophe
We
are approaching the middle of the current academic term (winter quarter), when
midterms and first major essays start to hit the inboxes. Frankly, this is raising some anticipatory anxiety for me. This past fall term in my
classes has turned out to be the “worst” ever in terms of blatant plagiarism in student
papers. In fact, I had to dismiss two
students for repeated occurrences.
It is
unfortunate that such records will go on those students’ transcripts, but
somehow the failing grade on the first paper just made them more desperate.
Even though I informed them that I always drop the lowest score, which would
wipe that from the record by the end of the term, it didn't temper the
temperament.
Of
course, this plagiarism thing isn’t new.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated about 150 years ago, it seems that once a
person has been published, he has the right to copy anything others have
written. More recently, the “art” of
plagiarism has come to be celebrated in a sense, as Tom Lehrer noted in his
1963 rendition (available on YouTube):
As
the Internet has contributed to the temptation of easy access to plucking the “forbidden
fruit” of the work of others, our campus recently underwent an effort to expand
the education regarding the behavior. As
a team of us worked on this project, we found some interesting cultural
differences at the root of the behavior.
In
some cultures, the act of identifying sources is regarded as an insult – both to
the source and to the audience. For
example, using the phrase, “To be, or not to be: that is the question” and referencing
it to Shakespeare would insult the audience’s intelligence. The implication would be that those in the
audience would be quite ignorant not to know the source if they hadn't been told. Likewise, it would dishonor the reputation of
Shakespeare to imply that his works and ideas are so obscure that they need to
be identified when used.
Thus,
students and writers from such cultural backgrounds would be avoiding such taboos
when they copy but don’t acknowledge the source. However, “When in Rome ….” (as Shakespeare has
noted - not to insult anyone’s intelligence).
Perhaps that was Shakespeare’s thought as well that he didn't need to
cite any of his sources for his works (such as St. Ambrose for the “When in
Rome…” statement.)
Because
plagiarism can appear in many forms and because folks here in the Humanities
Sciences like to refer back to the Greek and Latin roots of culture, here is
the blooming taxonomy in the original Greek:
Varieties of Plagiarism and Plagiarists.
Greek terminology such as pathos, ethos, logos, etc., is often
used in the broad scope of the humanities.
We could view the classification of major types of plagiarism in a
similar 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 or royal. 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.
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 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.
(Although these are
posted on the Green River website, I don’t need to cite myself as the source.)
Returning
back to the observations of Ralph Waldo Emerson from the top of the page, it
seems fitting to close with another of his observations on bragging: When we do encounter a braggart, we can
acknowledge that, even though it might be done unconsciously, at least he is not
guilty of plagiarism!
Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a somewhat regular presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices during the academic year.
Astral Facts is a somewhat regular presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices during the academic year.
