I have to say, I'm enjoying the writings of Lawrence Lessig a lot more than I thought I would. It is interesting to see a law professor clearly draw out the arguments on both sides of such issues, in clear contrast to the fuzzy and incoherent portrayals one can find on the internet whenever these topics pop up. The book is written with a strong narrative in mind, yet laden with interesting and illustrative stories, all conveyed with a simple yet intelligent use of English.
I'm a little interested in what solutions the author is working toward, and whether I'll find they resemble the things we have tried since its publication. For the moment though, I'm merely trying to keep a running track record of the history behind his stories. I find it amazing that I have never thought to look into the history behind copyright law and the trends in that history. For example, I remembered that copyright law was extended in the U.S. in the 1970's to cover works not formally published or reserved, yet I did not know that the monopoly-holders lobbied for the changes in order to exert more control over the market. I bet they were none too happy when the legislature balked them by imposing a limit on the term of the copyright.
I find myself hoping that the trend of courts, laws, and rights balancing themselves out in ways beneficial to the general public will continue to hold in the present, despite the problems with containing and regulating the internet itself.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Five-Finger Discount (Plagiarism Reflection)
Now, it's time for some thoughts regarding this Plagiarism Experience.
I had a much better time with this essay than the ghostwriting assignment, at least in terms of effort and workload. I was lucky enough while browsing the web to come across an author online who decided to showcase on his public blog some work he had typed up for a college course some two to three hours before its due date in the early morning. All I could think was, "Source found!"
This work was my sole source for the plagiarized essay handed in, but several factors seem to have worked in my favor for the sake of avoiding detection. First, the topic chosen was a much-discussed one, and therefore web searches involving the terminology simply hit too much interference from the numerous papers and blog postings online. Second, while actual instances of plagiarism are often detected long after the fact, we as a class have a few days only. Third, and I am a bit ashamed to admit this, I plagiarized with much more effort than most students would have taken. The source's own citations were removed, the related information replaced with my own thoughts drawn from common knowledge, and the tone of the article changed slightly. In addition, every sentence taken from the source was heavily paraphrased, with synonyms replacing words and the structure of the sentences changed.
However, while the effort was easy to handle, the emotional response was not. I felt rather awful after finishing a solid 3-4 page paper I never researched or wrote fully, in a third of the time it would have taken me to write a full paper on my own power. Even if I do well at this, I'm not sure I could be proud of such an "ability." I'll be sure to come clean and further explain my plagiaristic efforts (as well as release my source) for Friday's post.
EDIT ON 10/18/07:
The source for my paper on the extremes of outsourcing was an actual essay on the blog "Tinkafoo." The link is here. I essentially paraphrased much of it, then removed the data from his text sources and added what I could find from the domain of common knowledge, and finally altered the conclusion a bit to make it more of an impassioned end to the paper's dire predictions.
I had a much better time with this essay than the ghostwriting assignment, at least in terms of effort and workload. I was lucky enough while browsing the web to come across an author online who decided to showcase on his public blog some work he had typed up for a college course some two to three hours before its due date in the early morning. All I could think was, "Source found!"
This work was my sole source for the plagiarized essay handed in, but several factors seem to have worked in my favor for the sake of avoiding detection. First, the topic chosen was a much-discussed one, and therefore web searches involving the terminology simply hit too much interference from the numerous papers and blog postings online. Second, while actual instances of plagiarism are often detected long after the fact, we as a class have a few days only. Third, and I am a bit ashamed to admit this, I plagiarized with much more effort than most students would have taken. The source's own citations were removed, the related information replaced with my own thoughts drawn from common knowledge, and the tone of the article changed slightly. In addition, every sentence taken from the source was heavily paraphrased, with synonyms replacing words and the structure of the sentences changed.
However, while the effort was easy to handle, the emotional response was not. I felt rather awful after finishing a solid 3-4 page paper I never researched or wrote fully, in a third of the time it would have taken me to write a full paper on my own power. Even if I do well at this, I'm not sure I could be proud of such an "ability." I'll be sure to come clean and further explain my plagiaristic efforts (as well as release my source) for Friday's post.
EDIT ON 10/18/07:
The source for my paper on the extremes of outsourcing was an actual essay on the blog "Tinkafoo." The link is here. I essentially paraphrased much of it, then removed the data from his text sources and added what I could find from the domain of common knowledge, and finally altered the conclusion a bit to make it more of an impassioned end to the paper's dire predictions.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Double Post Day! (Ghostwriting Reflection)
And welcome, to the second installment of the brand-spanking-new formal occasion, Double-Post Day! For those of you still confused, check the prior post for an explanation. To those of you still confused after that, you've wandered into the wrong classroom once again despite this being the sixth week of class, and I'm afraid the fun in this regular occurrence has rather worn off for the rest of us.
And now, on to the topic of the day, a reflection on the recent Ghostwriting Assignment.
This assignment turned out to be a bit more challenging than I had expected, primarily because trying to write an actual paper while coordinating meeting times with my roommate was a bit more work than a simple paper might take. Looking back now, I probably should have seen this coming. The easy and the unexpected part of the assignment turned out to be the attempt to match my style to my roommate's. We've since discovered that our two writing styles are ridiculously similar, making the work primarily a matter of removing my own "quirks" in the writing and adding in his.
Since then, I've discussed this with him, and we now believe that this similarity is due to the fact that we've had the same English, history, and writing teachers all through middle and high school, and we also tend to share certain things, like our majors and ideological leanings. This certainly was a departure from what must be the normal experience for ghostwriters; I can't imagine most of them fitting their employers' writing styles to a tee without any real effort. While this did not change our relationship with each other, it caused us to learn a few interesting things about ourselves as writers.
If the fellows from the Nature vs. Nurture debate were to have a talk with the two of us, we would have quite the story for them.
And now, on to the topic of the day, a reflection on the recent Ghostwriting Assignment.
This assignment turned out to be a bit more challenging than I had expected, primarily because trying to write an actual paper while coordinating meeting times with my roommate was a bit more work than a simple paper might take. Looking back now, I probably should have seen this coming. The easy and the unexpected part of the assignment turned out to be the attempt to match my style to my roommate's. We've since discovered that our two writing styles are ridiculously similar, making the work primarily a matter of removing my own "quirks" in the writing and adding in his.
Since then, I've discussed this with him, and we now believe that this similarity is due to the fact that we've had the same English, history, and writing teachers all through middle and high school, and we also tend to share certain things, like our majors and ideological leanings. This certainly was a departure from what must be the normal experience for ghostwriters; I can't imagine most of them fitting their employers' writing styles to a tee without any real effort. While this did not change our relationship with each other, it caused us to learn a few interesting things about ourselves as writers.
If the fellows from the Nature vs. Nurture debate were to have a talk with the two of us, we would have quite the story for them.
Double Post Day! (Plagiarism)
It's officially time for Double-Post Day, the new, trendy celebration of the slack off/catch up cycle. I may have missed a post solely due to illness, but that still counts! Therefore, in keeping with the tradition I just made up, there will be two posts today.
And now, it's time for some thoughts on plagiarism; namely, that plagiarism is very, very bad.
However, this simply won't do for a blog post, so let's extend that a bit by covering the side of reactions to academic student plagiarism not wholly developed in the readings thus far: Exactly what do the other students think of it?
There was quite a large group of kids at my high school attempting IB program courses (think of them as an international sort of AP program), myself included. There were enough of us, in fact, to fill several classes at once and develop into a sort of social community. When we caught wind of plagiarism on anything higher-level than a spelling worksheet, it was taken almost as a personal insult to the members of our group. That someone would get out of doing the very same work we were doing and receive the very credit we failed to obtain struck a very raw nerve in the lot of us. Accordingly, when a certain student who shall remain nameless found himself within reach of valedictorian status upon graduating, despite a long-documented (by students) history of plagiarism and academic cheating, we felt highly vindicated when, at the last minute, several IB course teachers inexplicably began to "lose" his plagiarised work and assess his (rather substandard) remaining work at a higher level of scrutiny than had previously been employed. What the student failed to realize was that although his peers could not punish him for his transgressions, the teachers belonged to the IB community just as much as the students and were both willing and able to hold him accountable for his misdeeds.
The student did not graduate in the top twenty of the class and is currently, we believe, busy cheating and being caught at a quite respectable ivy-league university far removed from Wisconsin.
And now, it's time for some thoughts on plagiarism; namely, that plagiarism is very, very bad.
However, this simply won't do for a blog post, so let's extend that a bit by covering the side of reactions to academic student plagiarism not wholly developed in the readings thus far: Exactly what do the other students think of it?
There was quite a large group of kids at my high school attempting IB program courses (think of them as an international sort of AP program), myself included. There were enough of us, in fact, to fill several classes at once and develop into a sort of social community. When we caught wind of plagiarism on anything higher-level than a spelling worksheet, it was taken almost as a personal insult to the members of our group. That someone would get out of doing the very same work we were doing and receive the very credit we failed to obtain struck a very raw nerve in the lot of us. Accordingly, when a certain student who shall remain nameless found himself within reach of valedictorian status upon graduating, despite a long-documented (by students) history of plagiarism and academic cheating, we felt highly vindicated when, at the last minute, several IB course teachers inexplicably began to "lose" his plagiarised work and assess his (rather substandard) remaining work at a higher level of scrutiny than had previously been employed. What the student failed to realize was that although his peers could not punish him for his transgressions, the teachers belonged to the IB community just as much as the students and were both willing and able to hold him accountable for his misdeeds.
The student did not graduate in the top twenty of the class and is currently, we believe, busy cheating and being caught at a quite respectable ivy-league university far removed from Wisconsin.
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