NCTE & ‘mixing’ not plagiarizing

Although the author claims that she was just ‘mixing’ and that it should not be seen as plagiarizing, I think that it can be debatable. There are some books that I have read in the past that is based on historical figures, but the authors made the book into a diary in the person’s view (they had sources at the back of the book, along with actual pictures). I would consider that or something like that mixing. But having page in a book pretty much word for word the same, is really pushing the line between mixing and plagiarizing. Yes, mixing ‘allows’ people to use other people’s work/idea, and then put a different interpretation to it. But I think have one whole page of someone else’s work is a little overboard.

The author brings up an interesting point (one that we have mentioned in class before) that most of the younger generations (students) see plagiarizing differently from most of the older generation (most importantly teachers). It partly has to do with the fact that copying text is so much easier now. Technology has made is so much easier for people to find different sources, and more information. At the same time, it also indirectly encourages, or at least makes it easier to simply copy and paste sections of text. With the internet, it is easy for people to read a bunch of articles they find, read them all and only quote a few. In the citation, a lot of time the works that they read yet did not directly quote from is forgotten. Perhaps to avoid making that mistake, just list all sources in the bibliography or works cited page just in case. (I know that when I write, some of my phrases or word choices differ and is influenced by what I read around the time I write my paper).

Personally, I found it surprising that the girl in the article was still one of the finalists, even though the judges knew about the plagiarism. Perhaps to writing society is being more open minded (or some similar word that is not coming to me right now) about the issue.

I agree with the person who wrote the New York Times article, a few words or phrases that are similar, is accepted. But whole page or more is really pushing the standards or at least what is accepted. This article really puts most of the other articles on plagiarism and creates an example.

While doing proper citation of sources is rather confusing, there are people, websites, and even software that would help the general public with making proper citations (I was surprised to learn how Microsoft word 2007 has a reference menu that has helps with the citation). So it should not have been hard for her to come up with some kind of page with her sources listed out.