Alexis Perez

English 1A
17 September 2015
CRL 2
In Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty
by Rebecca Moore Howard she delves in to the topic of plagiarism and
how, due to the individual authorship that the modern era has created,
the severity of being a plagiarist has increased. Before the advent of
the modern era patchwriting was very common in early stages of
writing. Essentially patchwriting is a writing strategy in which you copy
from the original text, then lightly edit that text. It is argued that this
may be a very valuable stage in the writing process if adopted and
used correctly. Prior to the printing press and the development of solely
individualistic writing, collaborating with other authors was a method
of composition and occurred often. Due to the growth in writers after
the printing press and a focus on individual success a textual
economy (790) was produced which influenced the need of originality.
By discussing the transformation from collective writing to
individualistic writing, Howard explains the development of a plagiarist
and how there are now two types of authors/editors (791). She
continues to discuss how it is commonly viewed as one of the lowest
forms of academic dishonesty often resulting in the academic death
penalty. Although plagiarism is viewed as a multitude of offenses,
each one is treated with harsh punishments and is taken very seriously.
The problem with this is that the challenge to be original can lead to
unintentionally creating something similar to an already existing piece.
This also may happen if someone is not equipped with the right literary
skills to summarize or paraphrase without flat out plagiarizing. This
cloudy area of plagiarizing lead Howard to a new proposed policy to
lighten the severity of unintentional plagiarism. In order to do this it is
important to not cross the line of being too lenient. It is suggested that
questions need to be asked in order to decipher what the intentions of
the accused really were and improve the skills of writers in order to
prevent such incidents.
It is the object of this essay to suggest a plagiarism policy that
would respect the textual values expressed in existing policies but that
would also revise policy to allow for alternative approaches(789). One
of the main points Howard was trying to make was that the severity of
the punishments for the smallest amount of inaccurate citation might
be a bit drastic. Unfortunately the approach to such accusations is not
only an academic disappointment but a moral disappointment and
until approached from all view points it is unfair to put such a terrible
label o someone.

Amplifying Roses account of the availability and

commodification of texts associated with the emergence of the
individual author, Woodmansee emphasizes a third essential element:
the appearance of the reader (790). A large influence in the need for
originality in texts has a lot to do with readers. Initially when there was
an increase in mass literacy there was also an increase in the demand
for reading material. People would want to read different things and
differentiate between authors creating this pressure to not copy other
peoples work. This is a main concept because of the stigma that had
been placed on anything that was not considered original by the
readers, which then carried over to the authors themselves. Not only
were the texts inferior but the author as well.
If there is no originality, there is no basis for literary property. If
there is no Originality and no literary property, there is no basis for the
notion of plagiarism(791). I think one of the main points Howard was
trying to make was how difficult it is for students and writers to be
original. It is almost impossible with the years of texts out there to not
closely match or base an idea off of something else you read. Of
course with that comes the responsibility of crediting your sources but
after being influenced by someone or something else, trying to break
away from what they said is difficult.