Hey Ken
my one (well maybe there've been a few others) encounter with creative
plagiarism was when I was a marker, way back when. The person who did
it was a bit foolish & also very smart. She'd gone into the Queen's
library & found a book from the 1860s, long out of print, & taken its
comments on, yes, Shakespeare. Only problem was the style seemed just
too out of date & I eventually found the tome & the pages transcribed.
A person smart enough to find the damn book could have written a pretty
good essay on her own, I always thought.
Doug
On 21-Jun-05, at 9:19 AM, Ken Wolman wrote:
> roger day wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Your play was useful in that it allowed me to expose a little of my
>> history to the list, so I tips me hat to you, whoever you are!
>>
>> Glad to be of service! I hope my bit-part fitted well in your theatre
>> </bows to rapturous applause>.
>>
>> I've thought of taking a Poetry for Dummies course because I've
>> sometime felt that I've been missing something, something that when I
>> write goes astray. Of course, books and courses are never the answer.
>>
> And now Dr. Ken's Konfession. For years I believed such a thing
> existed. Poetry for Dummies. If they can publish books like "Sex For
> Dummies" ("Oh, THAT's what that's for! Hot damn!") and "Monte Carlo
> Simulations for Dummies" (not, I assume, how to win at Vingt et Un),
> why not "Poesie for Dummies" as well?
>
> Years ago, feeling that I was cheated of feature by dissembling
> Nature, having no idea what a poem was, how to write one (even though
> I had), or how to judge one without some Professor saying it was good,
> I tried to find the magic book that had all the answers. The book I
> chose? <sit down> William Empson's _Seven Types of Ambiguity_. No
> joke. No help.
>
> Oh, another plagiarism tale. True story. 1973, I'm a teaching
> assistant. Three profs and me, the Shakespeare lecture course. I
> thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. Then some kid in my personal
> section hands me a paper, I forget on what, but as I'm reading it I'm
> thinking "This kid writes fantastically, he can think on paper. Oh
> God--wait a minute." I focus on the kid. The kid is nice, not a
> doofus but not THAT bright. All of a sudden the writing sounds
> familiar. I am the guy writing a dissertation on audience/reader
> response in Shakespeare, and before I dropped him on his Scottish
> crown, Macbeth was in there. So I knew the classic critical writings:
> A. C. Bradley, c. 1904. I look at Bradley. I look back at the kid.
> It's the same words. Bradley didn't plagiarize the kid, I guess. I
> forget how, but I got a message to the kid to come to the office I was
> using. He did not seem like a jive-artist, just a jerk. He walks in
> totally unfraid and totally clueless. I confronted him with his
> unattributed quotes and Bradley's text. I thought the kid was going
> to cry, then faint. He had no idea that what he was doing was not
> kosher. NOBODY had ever taught this kid about plagiarism. He
> literally did not know he'd done it. It was easier for the teachers
> along the way to ignore the whole greasy issue until it got to the
> desk of a 31-year-old teaching assistant. I told him to get back to
> work, he had something like two days to correct the mess he'd made.
> The paper turned out to be not too hot but it was at least HIS not too
> hot.
>
> Ken
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
-- bring lust into the library
or it is hell.
Lisa Robertson
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