Bloggin' For Venegeance-My Homage To Judas Priest

The Patch writing saga continues where Howard compares (pre?) modern authorhsip with (current?) modern authorship.She takes us down the road of pre-modern mimesis and imitatio, where, while there were authors and texts (such as the bible, Plato and the like) they were considered the common property of all.This is contrasted with the "four pillars" of modern authorship: autonomy, propeitorship, originality and morality. Autonomy is the lonely artist in the garret-propeitorship is the ownesrhip that extends to authorship, originality is the idea that one's ideas should be one's own and morality-which is the equation of productive genius with virtue. This modern conception of authorship led to a beleif by the intellectuals of the 19th century, that though literacy was becoming more widespread, their had to be an intellectual hierarchy established (p.90). This was the notion that great literature could not be understood by the masses. If it could be it was notgreat art (any circularity here?). This has led us to our current attitudes on palgiarism, that professorsare some sort of bastion against the use of non-original material by their lowly students. Although, as we learn in the next chapter, some arei mmune from charges of plagiarism. For instance, thegreat political rhetoric of JFK was largely written by Ted Sorenson and a tribe of writers. Yet, no chargesof plagiarism were ever attached. So, even though a legal hierarchy was established to protect the "four pillars of authorhsip," some could get away with expressing the thoughts of others.But what the essential jist of this chapter is how the academy sets plagiarism in terms of ethics. If we become inculcated with the methods of the academy, the style shhets of the APA and MLA, we have adhered tothe rules of authorship. Those who do not, are either evil or stupid. In the next chapter, we get some models for "patchwriting" of sorts, we all of course now know of the 19th century women's groups, African-Amercian mimesis and patterns of folk-preaching, which all encouraged liberal borrowing from other sources.The next chapter asserts that technology is pushinguys towards another concept of authorhsip, as we all know how easy on-line borrowing is. In the final chapter, we get Moore's reccomendations on plagiarism policy, which seem largely to acknowledge the student role of patchwriting in learning academic discourse and that "punishment" bebased on the intention of the author and be dealt with indivudally as opposed to institutionally.

My question for all of you as you are all teachers of writing in some form or another, will you account for patchwriting in your personal plagiarism policy? To what degree can you account for inention?