plagiarism.

following is my honest opinion after reading scholastic dishonesty from the University of Texas website for a class that im taking.


|| [ idea of plagiarism ] ||

everyone knows that copying someone else' work without proper citation is plagiarism. that part is obvious and unambiguous. i do agree, to a certain extent, that there should be rules against plagiarism. however, the boundaries of plagiarism becomes unclear and, in my humble opinion, too far fetch when it comes to copying ideas, self-plagiarism, double-submission, and paraphrasing with citation to another source.

the whole idea of plagiarism is to avoid those lazy, unoriginal, unimaginative, uninspired people from taking those active, creative, imaginative, inspired, self-centered, hard-headed nobles' masterpieces. so, rules were invented and strictly enforced to keep other from stealing writings, ideas, sentence structures, findings, knowledge of these oh-so-intelligent geniuses and claim them as the works of those scumbags.

so, plagiarism is, obviously, not limited to copying verbatim from others. plagiarism is put in place to give credit to every little thing that the original creator ever thought of and included in the writing. therefore, if you are not careful, you could unintentionally plagiarize your favorite author's masterpiece, just because it left an imprint on your mind and you wrote it down somewhere and forgot where that imprint came from.


|| [ paraphrase ] ||

yes, your teachers has been telling you to paraphrase since you were in middle school. but it seems like the rules for paraphrasing is more convoluted than it appears to be.

so it appears that paraphrase, like direct quotation, requires citation. ok, fair enough. it also appears that paraphrasing is not just merely changing the sentence around slightly. not only paraphrasing has to be written in your own words (this part seems fair enough and obvious), it cannot even have the same, or remotely similar sentence structures. now now, great writers of all ages and great minds of scholars, arent you asking a little too much? not only do i have to put the idea in my own words, giving you credit for the idea, i cant even use the same sentence structure?? why cling on even the sentence structure if that genius mind can think of so much things i couldnt even begin to dream of?

give me a break. instead of holding onto your sentence structure, go count the words youve ever written in your lifetime and count your lauds. let me have that sentence structure.


|| [ double-submission ] ||

the university has "double-submission" under its scholastic dishonesty section, and has attempted to make several reasons to back it up.

double submission refers to submitting one piece of work to two different courses without the permission of the professor.

the university states that "some students mistakenly assume that they are entitled to submit the same paper (or other assignments) for two (or more) classes simply because they authored the original work." i agree with this statement completely. but the university obviously has a different opinion. apparently double-submission is not allowed because "an instructor reasonably assumes that any completed assignments being submitted for credit were actually prepared for that course" and it results in "unfair academic advantage". it states that "if you submit a paper for one course that you prepared and submitted for another clas, you are simply better situated to devote more time and energy toward fulfilling other requirements for the subsequent course than would be available to classmates who are completing all course requirements during that semester. in effect, you would be gaining an unfair academic advantage, which constitutes academic dishonesty as it is defined on this campus."

honesty, after reading what they have to say to back it up, i still dont see whats wrong with double-submission.

first, if the instructor assumes the work is prepared for that course, he/she would grade it as so. and if i have previously done an assignment that is similar enough to receive a good score on it, why do the same or similar assignment again? yes, go ahead and assume that my work is done for that course, grade it as if its done for the course. and if its good enough, why cant i get credit?

second, this "unfair advantage" isnt really given to me "unfairly". i have already previously put in that effort, how can you call it an advantage? i didnt cheat and submit something that i didnt put effort in, why cant i get credit for it? if the university claims that i am better situated, well i wasnt so better situated when i was putting time into that assignment the first time around. no, im not better situated, i dont have an unfair advantage over other students. im just lucky. sucks for you if you didnt take the same class i did and didnt get two similar assignments from two different instructors. better luck next time.
|| [ self-plagiarism ] ||

the double-submission question also raised another issue: self-plagiarism. the university says "recall the broad scope of plagiarism: all types of materials can be plagiarized, including unpublished works, even papers you previously wrote."

to me, "self-plagiarism" is an oxymoron. if the definition of plagiarism is taking other people's work and claiming them as your own, how can you plagiarize yourself? if self-plagiarism does exist, doesnt it mean we are plagiarizing non-stop? then does it mean once i write one thing, i can never repeat that thing again, and once i say one thing, i can never repeat that again? what then, are we on the never ending route of keep track of everthing we've ever said and written; are we in the ever extending tunnel of creating new ideas, phrases, sentences, speeches?

sorry for my misunderstanding, but i have always thought plagiarism was stealing others' ideas and works, never thought that ive been plagiarizing myself all my life. so, here, i officially apologize to myself. self, please forgive me for my unforgivable crime.

馬鹿じゃないの
|| [ 雪子 ] ||