"At long last, a discussion of plagiarism that doesn't stop at 'Don't do it or else,' but does full justice to the intellectual interest of the topic!" ---Gerald Graff, author of Clueless in Academe and 2008 President, Modern Language Association This collection is a timely intervention in national debates about what constitutes original or plagiarized writing in the digital age. Somewhat ironically, the Internet makes it both easier to copy and easier to detect copying. The essays in this volume explore the complex issues of originality, imitation, and plagiarism, particularly as they concern students, scholars, professional writers, and readers, while also addressing a range of related issues, including copyright conventions and the ownership of original work, the appropriate dissemination of innovative ideas, and the authority and role of the writer/author. Throughout these essays, the contributors grapple with their desire to encourage and maintain free access to copyrighted material for noncommercial purposes while also respecting the reasonable desires of authors to maintain control over their own work. Both novice and experienced teachers of writing will learn from the contributors' practical suggestions about how to fashion unique assignments, teach about proper attribution, and increase students' involvement in their own writing. This is an anthology for anyone interested in how scholars and students can navigate the sea of intellectual information that characterizes the digital/information age. "Eisner and Vicinus have put together an impressive cast of contributors who cut through the war on plagiarism to examine key specificities that often get blurred by the rhetoric of slogans. It will be required reading not only for those concerned with plagiarism, but for the many more who think about what it means to be an author, a student, a scientist, or anyone who negotiates and renegotiates the meaning of originality and imitation in collaborative and information-intensive settings." ---Mario Biagioli, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, and coeditor of Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science "This is an important collection that addresses issues of great significance to teachers, to students, and to scholars across several disciplines. . . . These essays tackle their topics head-on in ways that are both accessible and provocative." ---Andrea Lunsford, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of English, Claude and Louise Rosenberg Jr. Fellow, and Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University and coauthor of Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

A concise, lively, and bracing exploration of an issue bedeviling our cultural landscape–plagiarism in literature, academia, music, art, and film–by one of our most influential and controversial legal scholars. Best-selling novelists J. K. Rowling and Dan Brown, popular historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose, Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, first novelist Kaavya Viswanathan: all have rightly or wrongly been accused of plagiarism–theft of intellectual property–provoking widespread media punditry. But what exactly is plagiarism? How has the meaning of this notoriously ambiguous term changed over time as a consequence of historical and cultural transformations? Is the practice on the rise, or just more easily detectable by technological advances? How does the current market for expressive goods inform our own understanding of plagiarism? Is there really such a thing as “cryptomnesia,” the unconscious, unintentional appropriation of another’s work? What are the mysterious motives and curious excuses of plagiarists? What forms of punishment and absolution does this “sin” elicit? What is the good in certain types of plagiarism? Provocative, insightful, and extraordinary for its clarity and forthrightness, The Little Book of Plagiarism is an analytical tour de force in small, the work of “one of the top twenty legal thinkers in America” (Legal Affairs), a distinguished jurist renowned for his adventuresome intellect and daring iconoclasm.

'"Originality" is only plagiarizing from a great many', remarked Rupert Brooke, stealing the line from Voltaire. Questions of originality, and accusations of plagiarism, are as old as literature, but different literary cultures have interpreted the relationship between originality and plagiarism in startlingly dissimilar ways.Original Copy investigates and documents the drastic reappraisal of literary originality and plagiarism which occurred over the course of the nineteenth century: from the heroic visions of original authorship that characterised the 1820s and 1830s, through to the stickle-brick creativity of Oscar Wilde and Lionel Johnson at the century's end. It reveals how ideas of originality and plagiarism were not only a theoretical concern of Victorian commentators on literature, but also providedmany important Victorian writers - Eliot, Dickens, Reade, Pater, Wilde, and Lionel Johnson among them - with a creative resource. Moving between numerous different fields of thought and knowledge - literary criticism, the history of science, manuscript culture, anthropology - and written in a supple andelegant style, this book shows that the ideas of originality and plagiarism were the subjects of nineteenth-century literature, as well as what it was subject to.

Plagiarism is a serious problem in higher education, and one that the majority of university teachers have encountered. This book provides the skills and resources that university teachers and learning and development support staff need in order to tackle it. As a complex issue that requires thoughtful and sensitive handling, plagiarism simply cannot be addressed by warnings; detection software and punishment alone. Teaching to Avoid Plagiarism focuses on prevention rather than punishment and promotes a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to dealing with the issue. Topics covered in this book include: The causes of plagiarism How universities currently deal with plagiarism How teachers can support students in effective source use The role of technology Issues for second language writers and international students Drawing on her teaching experience as well as her academic research, Diane Pecorari offers a unique insight into this pervasive problem as well as practical advice on how to promote good source use to students and help them to avoid plagiarism. With a series of activities to help readers solidify their grasp of the approaches advised in the book, Teaching to Avoid Plagiarism is an essential guide for anyone in a student-facing role who wants to handle plagiarism more effectively. "Diane Pecorari's book provides practical examples and activities on handling plagiarism blended with research-based findings. It is useful for teachers wanting to improve their understanding and practices in managing plagiarism, but also student advisors and academic support skills staff who deal with issues of academic integrity. This book makes a unique contribution to the field of plagiarism management as its structure affords direct professional development opportunities. Assessment tasks, broad questions and activities are provided at the end of each chapter, encouraging readers to understand both policy and practice in their own institution to better manage plagiarism and source attribution." Dr Wendy Sutherland-Smith, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Australia "Teaching to Avoid Plagiarism successfully turns attention away from the detection and punishment of plagiarism and focuses instead on understanding and prevention through the promotion of good source use. Combining practical activities based on real-life examples with wide-ranging original research, this important book should be required reading, not only for staff development officers and lecturers, but more widely throughout the higher education community." Maggie Charles, Oxford University Language Centre "Diane Pecorari's insightful research and scholarship on plagiarism is used to excellent effect in this book which advocates a proactive rather than reactive approach to the difficulties faced by students in learning how to integrate their source texts. Thoughtful activities and discussion questions aimed at staff development are teamed with advice on ways to build in support within disciplinary writing which will help students master the necessary academic skills to avoid plagiarism. The emphasis, quite rightly, is also on helping students understand how plagiarism disrupts the ethical values of the academy, and is not just another hurdle placed in their way by academic insiders." Dr Ann Hewings, Director, Centre for Language and Communication, The Open University "As stated by Diane Pecorari in the first sentence of this excellent volume, 'plagiarism is a problem in our universities'. The volume demonstrates clearly how teachers and students can deal with this 'problem' by developing a better understanding of the phenomenon, on the one hand, and developing specific skills in dealing with it, on the other. Working from the principle that 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure', Diane Pecorari argues for a proactive approach to handling issues of plagiarism, with an emphasis on the need to train students how to deal appropriately with sources. As well as a clear exposition of the theoretical issues at stake, the book contains a wealth of practical activities and discussion questions which will allow readers to develop the sort of competence in dealing with plagiarism that is the goal of the volume." Professor John Flowerdew, City University of Hong Kong

Imitating Authors is a major study of the theory and practice of imitatio (the imitation of one author by another) from antiquity to the present day. It extends from early Greek texts right up to recent fictions about clones and artificial humans, and illuminates both the theory and practice of imitation. At its centre lie the imitating authors of the English Renaissance, including Ben Jonson and the most imitated imitator of them all, John Milton. Imitating Authors argues that imitation was not simply a matter of borrowing words, or of alluding to an earlier author. Imitators learnt practices from earlier writers. They imitated the structures and forms of earlier writing in ways that enabled them to create a new style which itself could be imitated. That made imitation an engine of literary change. Imitating Authors also shows how the metaphors used by theorists to explain this complex practice fed into works which were themselves imitations, and how those metaphors have come to influence present-day anxieties about imitation human beings and artificial forms of intelligence. It explores relationships between imitation and authorial style, its fraught connections with plagiarism, and how emerging ideas of genius and intellectual property changed how imitation was practised. In refreshing and jargon-free prose Burrow explains not just what imitation was in the past, but how it influences the present, and what it could be in the future. Imitating Authors includes detailed discussion of Plato, Roman rhetorical theory, Virgil, Lucretius, Petrarch, Cervantes, Ben Jonson, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Mary Shelley, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

In this illuminating study, Marilyn Randall takes on the question of why some cases of literary repetition become great art, while others are relegated to the ignominy of plagiarism. Her discussion reveals that plagiarism is not the objective textual fact it is often taken for, but a phenomenon governed by the norms and conventions of literary reception. Randall turns her focus on the critical debates surrounding cases of perceived plagiarism. Charting the progress of plagiarism in the history of Western letters, her study ranges over centuries, from the notion's first apperance in Roman times to contemporary disputes about intellectual property. Randall considers the development of copyright law and the notion of authorship, presents a wide range of texts, and draws aptly on Foucault's notion of the discursive construction of authorship. Just as Foucault studied insanity to find out what was meant by sanity, says Randall, so the study of plagiarism can reveal what was meant by the term "literary" at various cultural moments. She shows that perceived instances of plagiarism are aspects of an ongoing power struggle in the literary field. And as she reveals, it is not the plagiarist but the accuser who is most concerned with achieving profit and power.

Written for Higher Education educators, managers and policy-makers, Plagiarism, the Internet and Student Learning combines theoretical understandings with a practical model of plagiarism and aims to explain why and how plagiarism developed. It offers a new way to conceptualize plagiarism and provides a framework for professionals dealing with plagiarism in higher education. Sutherland-Smith presents a model of plagiarism, called the plagiarism continuum, which usefully informs discussion and direction of plagiarism management in most educational settings. The model was developed from a cross-disciplinary examination of plagiarism with a particular focus on understanding how educators and students perceive and respond to issues of plagiarism. The evolution of plagiarism, from its birth in Law, to a global issue, poses challenges to international educators in diverse cultural settings. The case studies included are the voices of educators and students discussing the complexity of plagiarism in policy and practice, as well as the tensions between institutional and individual responses. A review of international studies plus qualitative empirical research on plagiarism, conducted in Australia between 2004-2006, explain why it has emerged as a major issue. The book examines current teaching approaches in light of issues surrounding plagiarism, particularly Internet plagiarism. The model affords insight into ways in which teaching and learning approaches can be enhanced to cope with the ever-changing face of plagiarism. This book challenges Higher Education educators, managers and policy-makers to examine their own beliefs and practices in managing the phenomenon of plagiarism in academic writing.

In a series of articles published in Tait's Magazine in 1834, Thomas DeQuincey catalogued four potential instances of plagiarism in the work of his friend and literary competitor Samuel Taylor Coleridge. DeQuincey's charges and the controversy they ignited have shaped readers' responses to the work of such writers as Coleridge, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, and John Clare ever since. But what did plagiarism mean some two hundred years ago in Britain? What was at stake when early nineteenth-century authors levied such charges against each other? How would matters change if we were to evaluate these writers by the standards of their own national moment? And what does our moral investment in plagiarism tell us about ourselves and about our relationship to the Romantic myth of authorship? In Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period, Tilar Mazzeo historicizes the discussion of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century plagiarism and demonstrates that it had little in common with our current understanding of the term. The book offers a major reassessment of the role of borrowing, textual appropriation, and narrative mastery in British Romantic literature and provides a new picture of the period and its central aesthetic contests. Above all, Mazzeo challenges the almost exclusive modern association of Romanticism with originality and takes a fresh look at some of the most familiar writings of the period and the controversies surrounding them.

Quoting is all around us. But do we really know what it means? How do people actually quote today, and how did our present systems come about? This book brings together a down-to-earth account of contemporary quoting with an examination of the comparative and historical background that lies behind it and the characteristic way that quoting links past and present, the far and the near.Drawing from anthropology, cultural history, folklore, cultural studies, sociolinguistics, literary studies and the ethnography of speaking, Ruth Finnegan 's fascinating study sets our present conventions into crosscultural and historical perspective. She traces the curious history of quotation marks, examines the long tradition of quotation collections with their remarkable recycling across the centuries, and explores the uses of quotation in literary, visual and oral traditions. The book tracks the changing defi nitions and control of quoting over the millennia and in doing so throws new light on ideas such as imitation, allusion, authorship, originality and plagiarism .