First of all, I learned plagiarism is everywhere. It’s not just in literature. It’s not just in college or high school essays and research papers. It’s in music, photography, inventions, ideas, etc. It was interesting to me as a musician to learn about plagiarism being involved in the fine arts. It happens all the time and its something that no seemingly creative musician should be proud of. Let’s learn to be original.

Secondly, I learned that its hard to trust any “original” writings or works. Everything, as negative as it might sound, has to be looked at from a skeptical point of view. I’m a skeptic anyway so that shouldn’t be difficult. It is sort of sad, however, that America and really the worlds gotten to a point where you have to be skeptical of everything – especially original works and ideas. Don’t give people TOO much credit

Thirdly, I learned that UNF needs to adopt a better definition of plagiarism and the right precautions and punishments should be implemented. Plagiarism is never acceptable. It’s never honorable. So when its done in a paper or something, it needs to be punished. It wouldn’t hurt to be a lot more strict about plagiarism and maybe take extra precautions to check for it (like turnitin.com or something along those lines).

And lastly, I came to the conclusion that Stephenie Meyer isn’t original. When I did my Deriving Twilight project, I didn’t need any more evidence that she definitely was dipping into some other vampire series’ and romance novels to get her ideas for Twilight. That being said, however, I didn’t end up hating the books as much as I did when the class first began. I plan on finishing the last two books of the series’ over Christmas break :) Thanks Linda for bringing me over to the dark side! It’s been enjoyable, all!

I think what would make your idea or thought unique would be the actions and steps you take to make it more than an idea. Maybe your “cure” for poverty isn’t unique, but it would be unique if you actually did something about it – if you actually acted on your idea. Put it into motion. Everyone loves to sit around and talk about how the world would only be better if ____. Talk is cheap, as they say. If you think you have some great idea, why don’t you act on it. Rather than sit around and plagiarize and imitate thoughts that have already been thought, act on it. Do something. Write about it (though that might be plagiarizing). A little less talk, a little more action.

Romeo and Juliet is your classic romance. There’s the “forbidden fruit” aspect of it. There’s the undeniable and unquenchable thirst for the other person. There’s the fight for the relationship. What relationship, fictional or not, doesn’t have these characteristics? I can’t even think of a relationship off the top of my head that didn’t involve some level of “forbidden fruit” or some sort of “fight” to hold onto the relationship or the person.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the classic romance is what everyone should be striving for. Even Twilight with its vampires and werewolves has an underlying classic romance. Maybe we can’t escape the classic Romeo and Juliet tale, but maybe it’s because we’re not supposed to. Perhaps we should be plagiarizing our relationship after the classic relationships. Those are the ones that seem to last anyway, right?

I’ve been doing my Deriving Twilight project on The Vampire Diaries and I must say…it and Twilight are just too much alike. The main protagonists are practically the same person. Stefan and Edward are so alike that their pictures could even be confusing to anyone who’s not a twi-hard. For my project I used a lot of quotes from both books and if you didn’t say which book each quote was from, it’d be very hard to tell the difference and determine which book each quote was derived from (no pun intended).

How many times can we write the same old love story over and over and over again, people? Boy meets girl, girl shouldn’t like boy, girl likes boy anyway, boy and girl fall in love and go through many difficulties and struggles but, in the end, they always end up together. Can someone please write an original love story? Or is there no such thing as an original love story? Will every love story that’s ever written have something about it that seems to be a reflection or imitation of a story that came before it?

In Tuck Everlasting we read about Jesse and his family – The Tucks – and a young girl named Winnie. Winnie one day decides to “run away” from home and she runs into the woods. As she’s wandering through the woods, she stumbles upon Jesse, who is drinking from a spring in the middle of the woods. We learn later that the spring is a sort of “fountain of youth”. Whoever drinks this water from this certain spring, lives forever. The Tucks are the only people who know about the spring in the beginning of the story, thus they’re the only eternal family.

Similarly in Twilight, the Cullens are a family of Vampires. Their vampire-ness though is a secret to most people in the small town of Forks. The family is very set apart from the rest of society, much like the Tucks are, and they too are eternal. Both families keep this secret from the world with the exception of one girl in each story.
In Tuck Everlasting Winnie finds out the secret of the Tucks. In Twilight, Bella learns the secret of the Cullens. Both girls quickly become attached to their respective eternal family and spend most of their time with them. Bella and Winnie are quite different though. Bella is more middle-class, blue collar and sort of average. Winnie, on the other hand, comes from a wealthy family where she’s never had to do much for herself her entire life. Winnie is also a bit younger than Bella. In both stories, Jesse and Edward (the two leading men) are 17. Bella is also 17 but Winnie is only 12 in the book.

Despite their few similarities, the stories are very similar. There’s just something fascinating about eternal life.

This has the potential to not be a debate at all, depending on your view of God, actually. It sounds like it doesn’t apply, but it does. If you believe that we are created and individually designed by a Creator than this could be an interesting thing for you to think about. If you believe in evolution, or any other belief that doesn’t involve a Creator, than this debate might not even be a debate to you.

I believe in a Creator. Plain and simple. So the question is: can you plagiarize yourself through plastic surgery? And really, you wouldn’t be plagiarizing yourself; you’d be plagiarizing whoever created you. It depends on your definition of plagiarism, but let’s say you define plagiarism as copying or imitating anything when you don’t have the right to do so. If you believe you’re created by someone who knows what He’s doing much better than you do, would getting plastic surgery be plagiarizing His creation? He designed every person specifically and no two people are alike (not even twins), so don’t you think when he was making your lips a certain size, or making your breasts (to you ladies) a certain size, or making your nose and ears the way they are, don’t you think He knew what He was doing? So why do you feel you have the right to improve a creation that you don’t own the rights to.

We would never think to take any famous sculpture or painting or creation from history and kind of add our own little details to it. We would never dare walk into the Louvre in Paris and add and improve little bits of some of the most famous pieces of art at all time.  So why do we do it to ourselves? Perhaps we don’t have enough self worth to “not fix what’s not broken”. We should walk around knowing we are created in a very specific manor and it’s a beautiful thing when you can notice the differences in others and realize the beauty in it. It’s amazing that we don’t all look alike. It’s a gift. So don’t alter it just because you think it ought to be altered.

Don’t freak out on me. I don’t think plastic surgery should be illegal and certainly understand everyone’s entitled to their own rights. So if you want plastic surgery, go for it. But remember that no one needs ever to alter something about themselves for any reason other than them just desiring to. Don’t change for any person and certainly not to look like the fake celebrities that we see all the time. Don’t plagiarize yourself (but really, don’t plagiarize the Creator of yourself).

In the book we recently read by Susan Blum, she seems to create a ridiculous amount of almost excuses and reasons why students plagiarize. She discusses in depth different university standards and all the unseen factors that could play into why a student would want to plagiarize. The trouble I have with Blum’s book is that she seems to almost be condoning plagiarism to some extent. In one part of chapter 4 Blum is discussing the ever haunting task of finding a job after graduation. She concludes by saying, “By the early years of the twenty-first century, however, students had become anxious about finding a tolerable job. This anxiety is shared by our society, which worries about the fate of our brightest young people. And it is manifest in the choices made by those young people, who can’t afford to fail” (140).

It’s as if Blum is saying that students have to earn certain grades so they can find a good job post-graduation and so, because of the stress of having the best G.P.A., it is okay for a student to plagiarize here and there in order to attain the necessary goal (good grades and a good job)

I am of the persuasion that students know better. I believe by the time most students get to the university of their choice, they are very capable of distinguishing right and wrong. With this distinction, students should be fully aware that plagiarism is stealing. It is apparent, if you ask me. It is common sense. Ironically enough, plagiarism is common knowledge (thus not needing to be cited ). I would not believe any student who told me or anyone that they were not aware they were plagiarizing or they were not aware of exactly what plagiarism is.

I did grow up in a private school. We were taught what plagiarism and stealing was for as long as I can remember. When I was in high school, it wasn’t that nobody plagiarized; it was that when they got caught they were willing to admit they knew exactly what they were doing. I never went to school with anyone who plagiarized, got caught, and then said “oh…I wasn’t aware that this was plagiarism.” Plagiarism is the dark streak in any English class that you know when you see. And, moreover, you know when you’re plagiarizing. Somewhere, in your common sense mind, you know when you’re copying and pasting from another author or maybe only changing a word here-and-there in your paper.

I enjoy having assignments where I can implement a little of myself and my views and thoughts. Even in formal essays, everyone has a bias and I actually quite enjoy that bias. I’m confused as to why anyone would throw away an opportunity to speak their mind, through their writing, by inputting someone elses words and ideas. Everyone always has something to say about everything until it comes to papers, essays, and other writing assignments. Use your own words, people! We have to do better. You know right from wrong. I apologize for my rant

What about the Bible? This historical text has been put under so many microscopes in its long history on planet earth, but has it ever been examined under the microscope of plagiarism? One example from the Bible of possible plagiarism can be found in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The book of Matthew is thought to just be a longer version of the book of Mark. Many scholars believe the book of Mark was written first and that the author of the book of Matthew came behind and tweaked a few things but extended much of the passages in Mark. And, as expected, the authors of the books of the Bible did not cite references. Granted, it was more than likely of no importance to give credit where credits due back then, but as many times as one book of the Bible refers to another, there were very few references to who the author was of any particular quote or idea.

One example in this Matthew and Mark dilemma can be found in Matthew 12 and Mark 2. Many of the parables and stories between the two gospels are the same concept and idea and even in a few instances worded very similarly. In Matthew 12 and Mark 2 Jesus is talking to the Pharisees about the ins-and-outs of the Sabbath. The Pharisees were being much too legalistic about the Sabbath and Jesus was explaining, in short, that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. In Matthew 12:8 Jesus says, “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Then, in Mark 2:28 Jesus says, “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” How strikingly similar, huh? The two gospels of Matthew and Mark are also not believed to have been written at the same time and to some degree they’re not considered eye-witness accounts.

Not only are passages in the Bible strikingly similar to one another, but what about the Bible and other religions? The writings of the Bible have been believed in the past, and even sometimes recently, to have been derived, or plagiarized, from writings in other religions. In one instance, the Bible was believed to be derived from Buddhist writings. The Bible was believed to have been constructed between 50 and 150 A.D. Although Buddha lived many many years before Jesus walked the earth, his writings were passed orally for a very long time and there were no manuscripts of Buddhist writing until approximately 800 years after manuscripts of the Bible were around. This easily puts this idea to rest, but that doesn’t mean people won’t try to accuse the Bible of plagiarism from any other religious texts or Greek myths or even from itself!

Back in 2002, Stephen Ambrose, a historian, plagiarized in a book he wrote. He wrote a book entitled The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who flew the B-24’s over Germany. It was later realized that much of the authors work seemed eerily similar to a book entitled Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down Over Germany in World War II by Thomas Childers. Much of the symbolism and story line that Ambrose used seemed verbatim from Childers. In Ambrose’s book he barely gave Childers credit at all and definitely didn’t give him credit for the extent to which Childer’s deserved. There’s even one passage in both books that’s about six paragraphs long. Ambrose directly copied ten sentences of that passage from Childer’s book. [Information courtesy of www.weeklystandard.com]

Ambrose plagiarized a history novel, but not necessarily history itself. But there are those who try to, in a sense, plagiarize history. For instance, in the Spinnaker this last week there was an article about the student newspaper at Harvard University. Apparently, in the newspaper there was an advertisement for a student, any student, to name one person who was killed in a gas chamber in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. A Harvard student who is dead-set against the idea that the Holocaust ever even happened submitted the ad. [Information courtesy of Rebecca McKinnon of the Spinnaker]

Despite the ridiculous amount of evidence that the Holocaust did, in fact, happen, it is crazy to think there are still people who claim it never happened. Of course those claiming it didn’t happen are people who were not even born during the crisis. It’s hard to deny the Holocaust when America today is fortunate enough to have people who are old enough to remember the Holocaust (just talk to Elie Weisel). It worries me that one-day people could be plagiarizing history by not including things such as the Holocaust in future textbooks. It’s up to good upstanding students to make sure things like that never happen. I realize we’re in a free country where people are allowed to speak their mind whether you agree with them or not, but let us not forget where we came from. History is passed down from generation to generation and there should be no form of plagiarism about it. It should be told just how it happened. And think about the effects something like forgetting the Holocaust could have because history always repeats itself.

What if one day, when we’re all retired and in our 80’s and 90’s, there were college students claiming that 9/11/01 never happened? Wouldn’t it offend you? You were alive, you may have watched it happen or you may have had close friends or family members seriously affected by that day and some college kid’s trying to tell you it didn’t happen? Imagine how those deeply affected by the Holocaust must feel to hear about students such as Bradley Smith from Harvard. Let’s not let anyone re-write or plagiarize history. Never forget where you came from.

One website, www.mahalo.com, finds many cases of plagiarism in music. On their website they mention briefly how it can be very tricky trying to determine what’s imitation and what’s plagiarism and what’s acceptable and unacceptable. Ever since the word was invented, plagiarism has basically been the copying or imitation of an unoriginal work. Whether consciously or subconsciously, it’s wrong.

One example that mahalo.com alludes to as far as plagiarism in music is concerned is an instance that occurred in 1976. John Lennon, one of the infamous beatles of The Beatles, was sued by Morris Levy, Chuck Berry’s music publisher. Chuck Berry had done a song entitled “You Can’t Catch Me” and later on when “Come Together” by The Beatles surfaced, Berry claimed Lennon had stolen a line from his song.

Another example, a little more recent, occurred in 2007 with well-known hip-hop producer, Timbaland. Timbaland did a song for Nelly Furtado entitled “Do It”. After the song was released, rumors surfaced that beat of the song sounded strikingly similar to a song called “Acid Jazzed Evening” by Tempest, a Finnish musician, which was recorded seven years prior. I personally listened to the beats of both songs and I admit they do sound strikingly similar. It is pretty remarkable, if you think about it, how many different melody lines and beats artist’s have been able to come up with over the years. With that said, there are bound  to be songs that sound very similar to each other after such a long time of music being made. This could be another instance though where maybe Timbaland heard the Tempest song once or twice and then never thought twice about it, and then when it came to making his song for Nelly Furtado the beat “popped into” his head. This situation could just be mere coincidence.

How original are humans anyway? What is originality? These questions are going to be discussed much further in my plagiarism definition essay for class, but it’s a fun question to ponder. How do we distinguish imitation and originality?