I remember in middle/high school writing research papers for English class. I spent more time trying to NOT plagiarize than I spent on any other aspect of the paper. Which doubly absurd when you consider that there is literally not a single original thought a 14 year old is capable of having with respect to the War of 1812. When the entirety of my knowledge on a subject is based on a half dozen sources how the hell can I not plagiarize.
In that instance I say plagiarize away! Focus on idea sharing. On how to explain complex ideas to your classmates. On how to build consistent abstractions or arguments. On literally anything other than how to rewrite the three sentences so it says the same thing as those three sentences but with different words so you don't get kicked out of school.
This sounds like a failure of your teacher/grader, not like a failure of the idea of plagiarism, though?
> Focus on idea sharing. On how to explain complex ideas to your classmates. On how to build consistent abstractions or arguments.
100% agreed! And I think most cogent interpretations of plagiarism would say that if you're able to do those things then you're not plagiarising, you're building off of other sources (providing that you cite them correctly).
(It's entirely possible that I've been lucky, and that my teachers/professors took unusually rational stances when it came to this kind of thing. But it feels like you're presenting a false dichotomy.)
You don't need to have _original_ ideas. You can summarise the ideas from some other source (or, ideally, sources). In summarising, you make some choices as to what you think is important, and what you think is immaterial. You explain the core concepts in your own words, maybe differently from the source material. And, if you're quoting from a specific source verbatim, you acknowledge it.
Plagiarism is not about the copying in and of itself. It's about appropriating somebody else's work and pretending it's yours.
There is a very clear line between simply copy pasting an idea and reformulating that idea in your own words.
I agree that we should focus more on coming up with ideas independently, and that if they so happen to coincide with an idea someone came up before, no big deal.
In today's diverse world, however, what are the chances that you were even remotely going to say something word for word how someone else before you said it?
Why do we care so much about reformulating ideas in our own words? If someone expresses an idea in a good way, why shouldn't we be able to repeat it verbatim without being raked over hot coals for it?
That's my contention - why? Isn't that slavish devotion to quoting and sourcing all turns of phrase somewhat limiting? Why do we irrationally consider plagiarism such a horrible blight to be eradicated at all costs?
Respect for your reader, for one. Citations ensure your reader knows that:
A) It isn't your original thought or original words
B) They can look up some certain work by the person if they're interested in more
There's no doubt some level of it that's just academic elitism (don't even get me started on "authoritative sources"), but not deceiving your reader is a good portion of the requirement. It's not just about the fact that you used someone else's words, it's the fact that you did so, and passed off that work as your own.
Why does rephrasing a sentence magically turn a derivative thought into an original one? Why is using someone else's uncited phrasing considered the worst thing in the world? Why is it so vital that every single creative idea goes back to its root source with a full quotation and citation, distracting from the core idea, and shouldn't be creatively remixed or reworked?
It's bizarre and irrational. It's not just academic elitism, it's also about how the notion of copyright has changed our natural creative and communication processes. The natural copying, sharing and evolution of ideas has gone from being a natural of expression and communication into something verboten. Our collective culture, our modern folk tales and songs, are controlled in perpetuity with zero tolerance for "plagiarism". Any derivative ideas may not be retransmitted, reproduced, rebroadcast, or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the copyright holder.
Quotes help the reader identify possible alternative and even conflicting world views in the source materials. For example, suppose sources A and B come from two different schools of thought about the role of TDD in modern software development. Now I come along at write a new piece on TDD which uses their writings, without citation or quotes.
It's unlikely that my new piece will be cohesive, because source A's quotes use the London school while source B uses the classic school, which use the same terms albeit with different nuances. I might not even realize there is a difference.
While if I quote them, it's possible for a reader to figure out patterns I hadn't noticed in my sources. The citations also act as a normalization (in the relational sense) for how the different ideas are connected. With "Steve Freeman writes '...'" then a reader knows that I'm talking about London school, even if I don't know that.
As an example, look at all of the study of the Bible in order to identify anonymous changes in authorship. The fact that such details can be teased out of the text shows that textual analysis does provide useful information. (Stylometric analysis, which identified Joe Klein as the author of 'Primary Colors', also shows that there is extra information in the text than just the words.) Quotes help reduce the cognitive load for future readers by making these cognitive shifts more clear.
Perhaps the most extreme example of this is Borges' short story 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote', which "is often used to raise questions and discussion about the nature of authorship, appropriation and interpretation." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...
> Any derivative ideas may not be retransmitted, reproduced, rebroadcast
You are exaggerating. For example, there are any number of derivative work of Tolkien, including parodies like National Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings", or Pat Murphy's rewrite of "The Hobbit" as the space opera "There and Back Again".
These neither infringe upon copyright nor are generally considered plagiarism.
Copyright infringement and plagiarism overlap in how they are created, but they are not the same.
If I quote pages of text, with citation but without permission and beyond the limits of fair use, then that is copyright infringement but not plagiarism.
If I pass off an out-of-copyright 19th century play as my own, then a playwright would call that plagiarism, even though there is no copyright infringement.
The proscription of plagiarism is vital to ensuring that at least some of the credit goes to those who are creative, rather than those who are popular or well-connected.
It sounds like you've gotten anti-plagiarism and copyright mixed up. They are related but very distinct concepts. Anti-plagiarism has nothing at all to say against creative remixing and reworking.
Because plagiarism is stealing ideas or words that someone worked hard to create. It's dishonest, among other things. Also, if you're interested in why we quote and cite sources, I recommend reading Anthony Grafton's history of the footnote!
My blog has around a million views lifetime. I've no idea if anyone has claimed any ideas as their own. Maybe? Thus far it's not hurt me.
I've taken tons of ideas from Stack Overflow. All programmers have. How often do we include citations back? Sometimes! If the code is clever and non-obvious. But generally speaking there's nothing. How did I know to use this bit of API goodness? No one knows! It's a mystery!
I remember in middle/high school writing research papers for English class. I spent more time trying to NOT plagiarize than I spent on any other aspect of the paper. Which doubly absurd when you consider that there is literally not a single original thought a 14 year old is capable of having with respect to the War of 1812. When the entirety of my knowledge on a subject is based on a half dozen sources how the hell can I not plagiarize.
In that instance I say plagiarize away! Focus on idea sharing. On how to explain complex ideas to your classmates. On how to build consistent abstractions or arguments. On literally anything other than how to rewrite the three sentences so it says the same thing as those three sentences but with different words so you don't get kicked out of school.