Borrowing Others' Words: Text, Ownership, Memory, and Plagiarism
Alastair Pennycook
Alastair Pennycook
In this article Pennycook lays out the idea of plagiarism and how words are borrowed. This idea of an author is also placed here. In the first section he describes his own experience in China. He states that when he asked his students to write a paper about someone they knew well, someone wrote about Abraham Lincoln. This struck him as strange and he then found out that it was almost word for word from a text book. He had a hard time with this because some of this other students had memorized this as well. This made him wonder how important memory was and when does a non native speaker form their own ideas of the language, when do they become creative?
He goes on to talk about the Western idea of creativity and constructing an author. He tries to explain what qualifies and author and how can we use the authors words when we write. He says this is a Western idea of creativity and the previous words the author has written. He uses the examples of the presidents who have said famous lines, but these lines were actually taken from former people in history. He then talks about the word of God, and how this is relevant.
Pennycook goes on to talk about hunting the borrowed words. He says "Western literary practices centre around the notion of the individual creator and yet constantly echo the lines of others, academic work also stresses the individual, creative thinker, and writer and yet constantly emphasizes a fixed cannon of disciplinary knowledge"(213). So this is a problem that has to constantly be dealt with. There is no straight line of right and wrong here. Some people view it as strait out stealing and some as borrowing.
Pennycook then describes the changes in writing that are taking place to avoid the entire idea of plagiarism. He talks about taking away I in our work. Instead of stating our own opinions we now use a reference to something instead of ourselves. The idea of self-plagiarism is also produced.
The issue with East and West is then addressed by Pennycook. He says that he is not making it West against East or vice versa. He is simply telling us how it is different in his experiences in China and Hong Kong. The rules do not seem to be so black and white here. One student told him that she was not taught the rules of plagiarism in secondary school and this is why she did not know them. He concludes by saying that we must be more open minded as teachers and realize what our students have been taught and what their culture has taught them. Also, I think the rules of plagiarism must be shown to the student in specific terms.
The article was very informative overall. From the beginning I thought of the notion of non native speakers. I think that maybe we are quicker to judge them when they are writing and maybe look for plagiarism specifically. Pennycook makes it clear here that we must not do this, we must become familiar with their learning processes. If they memorize to learn, they may not understand the guidelines of plagiarism. We as teachers must make this clear to our students from day one of class. We must present our idea of what plagiarism is and steer the students away from this. Especially with zero tolerance being put in place at the university level.
He goes on to talk about the Western idea of creativity and constructing an author. He tries to explain what qualifies and author and how can we use the authors words when we write. He says this is a Western idea of creativity and the previous words the author has written. He uses the examples of the presidents who have said famous lines, but these lines were actually taken from former people in history. He then talks about the word of God, and how this is relevant.
Pennycook goes on to talk about hunting the borrowed words. He says "Western literary practices centre around the notion of the individual creator and yet constantly echo the lines of others, academic work also stresses the individual, creative thinker, and writer and yet constantly emphasizes a fixed cannon of disciplinary knowledge"(213). So this is a problem that has to constantly be dealt with. There is no straight line of right and wrong here. Some people view it as strait out stealing and some as borrowing.
Pennycook then describes the changes in writing that are taking place to avoid the entire idea of plagiarism. He talks about taking away I in our work. Instead of stating our own opinions we now use a reference to something instead of ourselves. The idea of self-plagiarism is also produced.
The issue with East and West is then addressed by Pennycook. He says that he is not making it West against East or vice versa. He is simply telling us how it is different in his experiences in China and Hong Kong. The rules do not seem to be so black and white here. One student told him that she was not taught the rules of plagiarism in secondary school and this is why she did not know them. He concludes by saying that we must be more open minded as teachers and realize what our students have been taught and what their culture has taught them. Also, I think the rules of plagiarism must be shown to the student in specific terms.
The article was very informative overall. From the beginning I thought of the notion of non native speakers. I think that maybe we are quicker to judge them when they are writing and maybe look for plagiarism specifically. Pennycook makes it clear here that we must not do this, we must become familiar with their learning processes. If they memorize to learn, they may not understand the guidelines of plagiarism. We as teachers must make this clear to our students from day one of class. We must present our idea of what plagiarism is and steer the students away from this. Especially with zero tolerance being put in place at the university level.
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