Rooikrantz cliffs...
"For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him.
Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted.
Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution.
Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever."
Marc Drogin Anathema! Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses (Allanheld & Schram, 1983) Quoted in Joan Reitz Dictionary for Library and Information Science (Libraries Unlimited, 2004)
Yeah, those are my words. The headline, that is. But the quotation echoes my sentiments as well. I wanted to share my weekend with you. Unfocused and directionless, it resulted in some interesting photographs...
Never mind. I'll litter this post with thumbnails.
Unfortunately, the thumbnails I'd like to post belong to several people who, to all intents, purposes, and the average student studying at the University of South Africa, live untouched by the realities of the common man's experience.
I'm speaking of plagiarism here; a loathsome, venal crime recognized by the law and scholars from every walk of life — including the Socratic university of the streets.
Platboom dunes...
Okay, let's get down to business. I'm fucking angry and, despite my daughter's fear of being victimized for this post, intend nailing those responsible for dismissing her first assignment written for AIS103-F (Introducing Information Records and Sources), an applied information science module overseen by the Department of Information Science at one of the world's largest correspondence universities.
Sarah's had problems with these people before. Last year, she signed up for and completed a National Certificate in Archival Studies. She wrote seven subjects, attaining an average of 95 percent.
She's yet to get her certificate. Several queries e-mailed to the university have resulted in inarticulate responses by clueless bozos demanding, among other things, money. She paid for the course, damn it, and passed with distinction. What more do they want?
Sans certificate, she embarked this year on a bachelor's degree in information science. In front of me, I have the essay that has her upset. It's the usual university crap...
An aside: a while back, she was asked to define 'academic writing' and cited in her bibliography one K Gocsik who, in 2005, described it as "...writing done by scholars for other scholars." Sarah, of course, incorporated this piece of knowledge into her own definition — using, I might add, her own words.
I thought of AKMA, Dr. Weimaraner, Jeff Ward et al.
"Academic writing's generated by people without lives recycling an extremely limited conventional wisdom," I told her. "But don't write that. My friends would get very upset."
Unknown sailor...
Back to the point. Sarah's essay is 'academic writing', as defined by Gocsik. It's basic stuff, but it's good. That she received 78 percent for it is by the by. Marks, as you well know, mean nothing to me. I don't do academe.
But that too is by the by. What has me wound up like a coiled spring — or venomous snake teased by its so-called handler — are the reasons given her for her lowly mark. Her lecturer, Bosire Onyancha, ascribes her poor performance to two primary, typewritten reasons, namely:
1) "You reproduced the study guide notes thus you did not use your own words."
2) "You did not provide citations (consult Tutorial letter 302 for INKALLE)"
In the text, he states: "You have just reproduced the study guide notes word by word. You must use your own words."
So now you know why I'm so hacked off. He's accused my daughter of plagiarism. Nobody — and I mean NOBODY — accuses my daughter of plagiarism unless they have grounds to do so.
On reflection, perhaps Mr. or Ms. Onyancha is unaware of the implications of groundless, thoughtless, baseless accusations of plagiarism. Which leads me to believe...
Nah...
Sarah's assignment is here. An original work, it must be cited if used.
The University of South Africa's Department of Information Science is free to post a copy of their study guide, highlighting my daughter's plagiarism.
More, I invite them to point to the supposed lack of citations in Sarah's work and spell out how her method of citation differs from the tutorial letter to which they refer.
Seaweed...
You might think I'm an overwrought, overly protective father. I'm not. I'm a professional blogger and, if you ask Frank, a good Catholic boy and a hard man to boot. What got me going was Sarah's protestations at my umbrage.
"You can't blog this. I mean, the person who wrote the study guide (Introducing Information Records and Sources, University of South Africa 2006) could be the plagiariser."
I stopped, noting the name of the author or compiler, Dr. M. K Minishi-Majanja.
"Whaddaya mean? Nah... You can't just accuse this person of plagiarism. You're doing the same thing Bosire Onyancha's done to you. Plagiarism, especially to academics and writers, is a heinous crime."
"I'm not accusing Onyancha or Minishi-Majanja of anything. I'm just saying that either Dr. Mabel Minishi-Majanja or Joan M. Reitz, the Librarian, Instructional Services at the Ruth A. Haas Library of the Western Connecticut State University is a plagiarist."
"Huh?"
"Well, look here," said Sarah, motioning me to the PC, her study guide, and the Dictionary for Library and Information Science, published by Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of the Greenwood Publishing Group, in 2004. "I've no idea who came up with these definitions first, but you just need to look..."
I was looking. At Reitz's work — online. She offers definitions; Minishi-Majanja offers the same as text.
The reserve...
In Study Unit 4: Printed and Other Information Sources, the good doctor writes of the monograph: "'...complete in one physical piece, usually written by a specialist in the field.' ... 'Monographic treatment is detailed and scholarly but not extensive in scope.'" Of fiction, our learned academic opines:
"From the Latin fictio, meaning to 'make' or 'counterfeit.' Literary works in prose, portraying characters and events created in the imagination of the writer, intended to entertain, enlighten, and vicariously expand the reader's experience of life. In historical fiction, characters and events usually bear some relationship to what actually happened, but any dialogue is reconstructed or imagined by the author. All fiction is fictitious in the sense of being invented, but good fiction remains 'true to life.' In Western literature, the traditional forms of literary fiction include the novel, novelette, and short story."I wonder what our leading information scientist would make of "fictive", as in "...adopted in order to deceive"?
Our esteemed doctor of informatics does not place the italicised sentence in the position indicated. She positions that particularly phrased piece of information in her textual dissertation on genre, which she describes as "...a type, class, or style of literature, music, film, or art." ... "Today, literary works are classified by form (novel, short story, poetry, drama, etc.), [and] by theme (adventure, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, western[s], etc.)"
"Popular fiction, on the other hand, refers to serious works of narrative fiction widely read when first published. Popular fiction is superior in quality to pulp fiction but not as enduring as literary fiction (e.g. the novels of Jeffrey Archer...".
Dreyersdal Farm...
"Well," I said to Sarah, "I've seen enough. "I wonder what the Departmental Chair, Professor Matchet, would make of the doctor's work?"
"Or Reitz's?" asked Sarah.
"Indeed."
Neither the one cites the other — Minishi-Majanja devoting six pages to a bibliography covering 50 pages of text. Who is diddling whom in this game of give and take?
A technical writer in need of a well-paying gig, I've had my share of writing ripped off. Others have made money from my work. They've spread it across the Web and it has, in some cases, endured. I've tried to view it as flattery; but I can't. It pisses me off. Eric Alterman knows this. I slagged the high-flying MSNBC blogger for plagiarizing Paul Thompson's magnum opus three or four years ago. Alterman by Name and Alterman by Nature I called the two posts. I wonder where Eric is now. "Everywhere," Google tells me. I see he was termed "the most honest and incisive media critic writing today" in the Catholic National Reporter.
The Nation tells us:
"Eric Alterman is Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, the "Liberal Media" columnist for The Nation, senior fellow and "Altercation" weblogger for Media Matters for America, (formerly at MSNBC.com), a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where he writes and edits the "Think Again" column, as well as the World Policy Institute at New School University in New York. He is also a history consultant to HBO Films."So it goes... To many, he is an academic. To me, he remains a plagiarist and, as I said of plagiarism in October 2003, I say the same now. "Whether it is the practice of one or one thousand writers, it detracts from the value of that which is written by everybody else."
The Learning Centre...
Dr. Mabel K Minishi-Majanja publishes widely. She writes prodigiously and is averse to pulp fiction, "...[s]ensational fiction of no enduring literary value, [and was] popular from the 1920s [until] the 1940s. [Pulp fiction is w]ritten for the mass market, usually according to formula, ... printed on poor-quality paper, bound in soft cover, and easily recognized by the lurid design on the front cover. Popular genres include romance, adventure, westerns...."
A cursory scan tells us her brush is broad and her canvas is vast. She covers everything from trade editions to reference books, all in macroform.
Oh, good grief. Quite how anybody teaching information science in the Information Age thinks they can use others' words and get away with it is beyond me. Have these people so desperate to label and categorize not heard? In a world saturated with information, Everything is Miscellaneous.
David quotes a snippet from a review by Susan Crawford: "It’s not so much that everything is miscellaneous but that nothing need be. Shards of information are forever being gathered online, creating individual ‘knowledge’ that is revelatory. Weinberger finds music in the spaces between the notes, in the intersections and gaps and collections that make up online group-created knowledge."
Would that more listened to the music.
Why do I cast more aspersions at Dr. Minishi-Majanja than I do at Joan Reitz? Because while a Google search reveals Joan Reitz knows nothing of Dr. Minishi-Majanja, the good doctor uses — in a PowerPoint presentation entitled Reference Techniques — her access of Joan Reitz's publication in June 2006 as an example of citing electronic publications.
Somehow, it didn't make into her book. Introducing Information Records and Sources. Published in 2006. By the University of South Africa.
Which — without any evidence thereof — accuses my daughter of plagiarism.
UNISA sucks like a $5 RentBoy.
I can say that.
Not because I have experience of rentboys.
Because I'm no academic.
Let me state, here, now and forever more, that the only thing AKMA, David, Jeff and other academics of my acquaintance have in common with plagiarists (or rentboys) is that they do not swear when they write. Sorry, let me rephrase that. They do not commit their swearing to writing. Often. Or something like that. They are bloggers and, therefore, like my daughter, honest men.
No, that doesn't sound right...
Note: Should UNISA wish to pay the requisite royalty fees to Ms. Reitz, they can do so by remitting an agreed to amount to:
Libraries Unlimited
88 Post Road West
Westport, CT 06881
United States of America
Alternatively, they can contact me on 021-555-7950 for my banking details.
Afterthought Of the past twenty-five years, I spent a large part of the first thirteen rewriting, subediting, proofing and / or reading academic and legal texts. They are not new to me. Nor is 'fair use' or plagiarism. There was the famous case of Silke on South African Income Tax being 'published under another cover' by Butterworths... well, sort of — it was all settled in court after the usual fashion; nobody won. Theft births only losers.
