betajames

Cutting and pasting shouldn’t be considered writing. And though “mixing” has a nice ring to it—what about blending? Or melding?—it doesn’t hide the dirty reality that someone is getting robbed.

Pla­gia­rism really only makes sense in a schol­arly or jour­nal­is­tic con­text. It’s a mis­take in the han­dling of sources, and can be mali­cious or non­ma­li­cious, and can com­pletely dam­age a work or be rel­a­tively inci­den­tal to it

The plagiarist attempts, as Clark puts it, "to soften the charge against them by misdirecting your attention and by muddying the core issues." These evasions allow the plagiarist to displace the key question of whether his copy was adequately sourced with the more delectable conversation about the plagiarist's mental state, his sloppy work practices, the unintended effects of modern technology, and the "meaning" of originality.

Now and again the busted plagiarist will claim "complete responsibility" for his act—but what that really means is that he wants everybody to leave him alone.