Tag Archives: plagiarism

documentation and sources

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Both articles are very interesting and informative. ‘Vanishing Act’ describe the problem with lifetime of sources for magazines and ‘Documentation’ explain the importance of source citing and commenting in a way of better understanding and presentation for readers and authors. The fact that internet source live for so short period of time force me to be grateful that Wayback Machine is already exist. From the other side, historical explanation of collaboration experience not helping to fight with plagiarism, as far , as I understand  Hauptman, the auditorium always should be smarter and more erudition then the author, otherwise they will be mocked.

 

Aaron Swartz

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In my opinion Aaron Swartz motive or motives for downloading so many scholarly journals from JSTOR (a digital library of scholarly articles), is clear. He wanted to make the information and knowledge that is obviously hoarded knowledge and information available for a price.Well that is my thought; obviously there is more to the story, Only to be told by the decease.
JSTOR is available free of charge to users if they use a communal subscription like the local libraries or college library to my understanding but, the college/universities and library still pays a fee for access to the database.
It was victimless crime, and his demise was very sad. As a student I would like to have access to information without paying hefty fees. Students already pay so much for text books; and sometimes additional information is need and that’s where these scholarly journals comes in. Stealing is wrong punishable by law ; but that extensive punishment Aaron received was unacceptable and I think they made an example out of him.
He could easily have had a student give him access to the database; instead he went the other way which I think was more to make a political statement after thinking about it throughly. Additionally, looking at the bigger picture plagiarism would come into play if these journals are open for public use without the fee but, there are strict copywriter laws that should protect the authors. This is a really hard subject to talk about because there are so many things to take into consideration when discussing this touchy subject of knowledge and information available for free, plagiarism and copywriting laws all have to come into play with what Aaron Swartz did.

Plagiarism wrap-up from today, and reading/blogging for Wednesday, March 4

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Today we discussed plagiarism in various contexts, especially in what constitutes plagiarism and academic integrity infractions in higher education. We also discussed the research topic proposal, due 3/23. A pdf of today’s slides is available here. Please get in touch if you want to discuss your ideas for the research paper topic.

On Wednesday, March 4 we will discuss information access: personal access, institutional access, and implications of the so-called digital divide.  Since the FCC recently ruled on Net Neutrality, we’ll review the effects of this ruling on our current and future internet access.
Please read the following: Martin, B. The Politics of Research
Samuelson, Aaron Swartz: Opening Access to Knowledge
Ruiz and Lohr, FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules

Your blogging assignment is one reading response blog post.

~Prof. Leonard

Walsh, reading response.

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What stood out to me while reading “Senator’s Thesis Turns Out to Be Remix of Others’ Works, Uncited” was, “at least a quarter of his thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors’ works, with no attribution.” So, he was appointed to the United States Senate and his thesis paper was written in 2007. The article on the other hand was written in 2014. Interesting. Who went to the trouble of researching Walsh’s thesis paper? I believe peoples ideas are a complex topic. I was told once, “Your responsible for what you know, your not responsible for what you don’t know.” I believe that applies here.

Plagiarism! reading between lines …

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Incredible …. amazing ! that what I repeated unconsciously- while i was reading the article, “The plagiarist’s Tale” for the author of “Assassin of Secrets”, yet now revealing his own secret.

35 years old, named, Quentin Rowan, is a professional plagiarist has huge capabilities to write … i mean, to weave new texture format of what he reads, plagiarize, or steal.

I think that he was clever enough to play in an area that shows the subtle distinction between “borrowing” ideas and “plagiarism”.

Because, “plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else’s work and lying about it afterward”, according to plagiarism.org.

When he has interviewed, he keeps saying ‘I’m addicted’. But I think it is a matter relevant to psychological aspects … he is a liar.

Plagiarism and Inspiration

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In order to understand where is line between plagiarism and creation/inspiration exist, we have to realize that it’s totally different events. Creation is a complex  complicated process which include all levels of author beings, it’s more spiritual or intuitive than explainable or understandable. From the other side plagiarism is a technique, is something anyone can learn and being good in it, even perfect. It’s like driving car: some people doesn’t know how to do it , a lot knows how to do it good, singles knows how to do it excellent, but it’s not an art.
Even if somebody really good in compilation, it’s not make him a good artist, it’s actually make him no artist at all. Doesn’t matter what genre of art is mentioned or what stile, James Joyce, for example, through the whole first part of Ullis was doing a parody for all literature styles of all times, from Homer to Classicism, but he was not copy of anyone . Moreover, he was the first Modern writer. Same way Leo Perutz always took real time and characters but put them in mystical or even magical environment , where God and Devil play together with regular people.
Plagiarism or compilation, is an actual level where true talent never can exist, the speed is too low, the prize is too miserable. Compilation is a pragmatic people poison, when at the same time, inspiration is whine for a gifted, and unfortunately they almost never mix together.

Cutting and Pasting

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A story of a man who just couldn’t stop committing plagiarism is an interesting one. On the one hand it’s a terrible offense. On the other hand this man had a very unique skill, although I doubt I have any idea how to apply it other than to plagiarism. It was almost like book Photoshop. It was such an interesting skill that I almost wish I knew what could be done with it. To be able to mash up so many different pieces of work and put them together in a way that made it hard to detect plagiarism isn’t anything common for sure. There’s something of use there, I just don’t know what it is.

Plagiarism Addiction

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I just finished reading “The Plagiarist Tale” the story was pretty crazy. Rowan spent decades getting away with plagiarism, what really struck me was that he was stealing from over 15-20+ pieces of work. I can’t believe he was getting away with this for so long. This article got me upset because he made a whole career & good living through plagiarism while there’s students like me or aspiring writers who put their all into into writing a piece. Whether it’s to get a good grade or in hopes of attaining a valuable career we put in the effort, whereas Rowan just pieced together the efforts of dozens & dozens of authors. Now as unethical as his actions were I have to give Rowan credit where credit is deserved. He has a a great mind, its no easy task to take hundreds of different passages/sentences throughout different periods of time and being able to seamlessly integrate them into one story, a “literary mash up” as the article says. Being able to do this is a talent within itself, its unfortunate he had to use this talent for bad. I believe if he had a conscious back then he’d be able to find a way to use this talent for something beneficial other than stealing people’s work.

An impressive work of plagiarism.

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I was somewhat impressed by Rowan’s act of plagiarism as described in Widdicombe’s article for the New Yorker, to create a book out of a multitude of different books is hard to even fathom.  One can even argue that were it not for his eidetic (photographic) memory writing a book in this fashion would have been way more difficult than creating an original work; you would have to take into account different tones, situations and then make them fit seamlessly into one story.  This was still an act of plagiarism but at the same it was still a work of art. I strongly believe like the article alluded to that if Rowan had initially come out before the book’s release and said that his book was created from a mash-up of different works there wouldn’t have been that much outrage.  At least Rowan admitted to his act of plagiarism unlike Senator John Walsh who flatly denied his act of plagiarism according to the New York Times article by Jonathan Martin.  Senator Walsh was accused of allegedly copying his thesis for the U.S. Army War College; after looking at the open interactive graphic in the New York Times article it’s pretty hard to deny that he did not plagiarize parts of his thesis.  Once you are caught plagiarizing the only thing you can do is fall on your pen and apologize there is no other recourse.

Privacy recap, and readings/blogging for Monday, March 2

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Today we discussed how definitions of privacy are evolving in a digital environment. If you didn’t get a chance to read through to the end of the longer privacy readings, please review the following sections: The Future of Privacy: Other Resounding Themes and Big Data and Privacy: Current Situation and Outlook.

On Monday we’ll discuss a topic at the heart of information ethics: plagiarism. Please read the following 3 articles:

Widdicombe, The Plagiarist’s Tale

Martin, Senator’s Thesis Turns out to be Remix of others’ Works, Uncited

Lethem, The Ecstasy of Influence, just the following sections: Contamination Anxiety, Undiscovered Public Knowledge, and the Key through to the end.

Your blogging assignment is one reading response blog post.

Bring your phones on Monday so we can do an in-class activity on plagiarism; I’ll set up tablets if you’d prefer to use that. It is not too early to begin thinking about your research paper topic; the topic draft & podcast assignment will be due on March 23. I’ll distribute guidelines next week. Questions? Get in touch!

~Prof. Leonard