The Courtship Ritual of Anti-Plagerism
I'm really beginning to disdain the abstract formalities of introducing and establishing quotations or paraphrased ideas. The words as property "belonging" to another. If it is effective, I want to use its effectiveness as such without being hindered by the elaborate rituals of credit due. Shall I introduce the author in a dependent clausal link, or perhaps just the work that she has written? If I do so, I may omit the name of the author in the MLA parentheses but not in the Chicago footnote. So I must take a step back and determine if an introductory two sentences explaining this author's primary purpose for their particular contruction of a quality sentence I just wish I could seamlessly interweave into my essay. I step forward again, trudgingly admitting that such an in-depth character analysis detracts from my purpose, even in a circituitious way, and keeping in line with the argumentative style of writing decide to spin around - introducing the author with a momentary comma-pause right before the quote is interwoven into the sentence.
In expression my frustration at this dance, I do not mean to be selfish in a very contraceptive, utilitarian sense - that I want something for its good qualities without its bad. I fully acknowledge that writers and scholars have ideas, and those ideas should properly be associated with the way they had presented it - particularly for aid in tracing ideas and scholarship. [Trained as an undergraduate historian, I don't think I could ever eschew references].
Indeed, I will fully acknowledge that such words are not my own, if asked, and in a paper I should well cite. Perhaps in a speech including in a transcription the description of the location of places borrowed from at the bottom. But I certainly get frustrated having to insert "So and so said x" or "In this or that publication, it said y". If the phrasing, particularly as a speaker making a point (when you're not trying to use the credidation of the source to augment your argument) but also as a writer, why not, if you like the way someone phrased something in an argument, mold it seamlessly into your own as part of a coherent unit? An extended conversation and thought process hopefully improved upon and certainly presented in different ways.
Intelligence in composition includes not only originality in thought and paraphrasing in purpose, but also the quality use of effective modes of expression. If that means I shall quote whole passages without every refering to the source, but give technical credit for legal and consideration purposes, then what should it matter?
Is this method of presentation in the academic discourses, which as a whole structure and monitor the courtship ritual of anti-plagerism, a remnant of particular masculine ways of structuring information? As a whole, academic writing does indeed follow this pattern, but the history of citations and what plagerism is seems to be much more varied (as perusals of various students' final speeches at my colonial institution attest). What then are some alternatives that present this information in a more feminine way? A molded, interweaving cooperative use of language seems to me much more effective and beneficial to expressing one's idea, because, as women, and as people, we think in relation to other things, even if we don't always identify them.
In expression my frustration at this dance, I do not mean to be selfish in a very contraceptive, utilitarian sense - that I want something for its good qualities without its bad. I fully acknowledge that writers and scholars have ideas, and those ideas should properly be associated with the way they had presented it - particularly for aid in tracing ideas and scholarship. [Trained as an undergraduate historian, I don't think I could ever eschew references].
Indeed, I will fully acknowledge that such words are not my own, if asked, and in a paper I should well cite. Perhaps in a speech including in a transcription the description of the location of places borrowed from at the bottom. But I certainly get frustrated having to insert "So and so said x" or "In this or that publication, it said y". If the phrasing, particularly as a speaker making a point (when you're not trying to use the credidation of the source to augment your argument) but also as a writer, why not, if you like the way someone phrased something in an argument, mold it seamlessly into your own as part of a coherent unit? An extended conversation and thought process hopefully improved upon and certainly presented in different ways.
Intelligence in composition includes not only originality in thought and paraphrasing in purpose, but also the quality use of effective modes of expression. If that means I shall quote whole passages without every refering to the source, but give technical credit for legal and consideration purposes, then what should it matter?
Is this method of presentation in the academic discourses, which as a whole structure and monitor the courtship ritual of anti-plagerism, a remnant of particular masculine ways of structuring information? As a whole, academic writing does indeed follow this pattern, but the history of citations and what plagerism is seems to be much more varied (as perusals of various students' final speeches at my colonial institution attest). What then are some alternatives that present this information in a more feminine way? A molded, interweaving cooperative use of language seems to me much more effective and beneficial to expressing one's idea, because, as women, and as people, we think in relation to other things, even if we don't always identify them.
posted by Silabella @ 10:27 PM
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