No Quotes. Just Right?

I’m particularly interested in Blum’s “defense” of plagiarism towards the end of My Word. In chapter five, she argues that it might benefit instructors to remain attentive to the way that culture exerts influence on writing practice(s). Blum observes that, in certain cultures, the authority for ideas emanates from the, “tried-and-true wisdom of predecessors, those valorized through credentials and publication” (168). Here, not only do her remarks call attention to a tradition that privileges certain arguments and knowledge formations—one might think of evaluative systems that immediately praise an author’s appeal to a particular tradition—but they force the reader to consider the value that different cultures place on the imitation of esteemed texts or artifacts. Although in Western intellectual discourse we reference well-reputed authors in order to validate the claims that we make, other discursive contexts privilege a more intense version of this practice. Whereas we might, in an effort to advance a particular argument, briefly reference or paraphrase a study, passage or claim, more emphasis is put on this form of labor in other cultural settings; in certain contexts, simply put, the value of a text is determined by its proximity to the original. In certain settings, independent agency or authorship is valued less (where it is not prohibited outright) than a more imitative engagement with the textual edifices of that society.

What this means, on a very basic level, is that instructors must remain attentive to the way that culture informs writing practice. This is to say, that students that learned to write in the setting described above, will likely experience great difficulty appropriating the type of strategies that we preach. With little difficulty, one can imagine the peril of attempting, probably for the very first time, to put one’s “own ideas” into play. Now situate yourself in the 1020 classroom. In addition to the resistance that we will likely encounter from students that already have some experience with the type of authorship that we privilege, we must also contend with student’s that are dealing with this road block for the first time. How successful do we imagine we will be in our attempts to smooth this transition, considering that we will likely already have a hard enough time getting students that are more familiar with this type of discourse to feel comfortable with their thoughts, and express “their” ideas within the sometimes daunting context of classroom discourse?

In particular, I’m thinking about a student that I met with in the Writing Center a few weeks ago. Initially, having read through the student’s paper, I felt confident that we could make substantial headway. What I failed to account for, and only learned through a more thorough investigation of his primary source, was that the student had pieced his response together from parts of the original text. I might be a little clearer here. The entire paper consisted of sentences that the student lifted from the original text. Under the auspices of Western appeals to authorship, this student was clearly violating the principles of plagiarism that we esteem. Reluctant to immediately dismiss the student’s work, keeping in mind that I spent the last twenty minutes smoothing the strange disjunctions existing between sentences, I asked him to explain why he used this approach. His response was particularly informative. He suggested that his professor wanted students to locate the main points of the text, and to write a response incorporating those elements. From his perspective, this type of work entailed literally extracting the author’s main arguments, and piecing those points together. When I tried to explain to him that by using this strategy, he would likely upset the professor, and even, incur the wrath of certain academic authorities, he expressed some confusion. It became clear, as he continued to defend his text, that he believed the author to be an authority on the matter. As such, he felt uncomfortable and even unsure of how he might incorporate his own perspective on the matter.

What this example proves to me, beyond the obvious call for increasing attentiveness to the diversities of student experience, is that we need to think critically about the type of learning practices that we facilitate in the classroom. This is to say, paralleling recent conversations in other courses, we need to remain attentive to how the modes of inquiry that we advocate or privilege might confront students. Thinking in terms of Muckelbauer’s recent interest in the intellectual strategy of affirmative change as a necessary supplement to a tradition of dialectical practice, I’m interested in what strategies we might see benefiting students that are just becoming accustomed to both university culture, and in certain cases, an entirely different experience of writing practice. Here, specifically, Muckelbauer observes how innovation can stem from imitative practice.

Furthermore, how do we reconcile this type of practice with professional, disciplinary, or other demands? I mean, at some point in time, despite one’s best efforts to concede to the intricacies of student personal experience, you have to make sure that they are learning the strategies that are necessary for future success, both within and outside of the university. Despite our best efforts to appeal to the experience of each student—to facilitate “understanding”—we might have to consider this as much a disadvantage as a benefiting strategy. Where to draw the line?