Ahlers and Norelius 1

Bella Norelius and Carl Ahlers

Dr. Serviss
CTW 1
5 October, 2015
Plagiarism and the Pursuit of Happiness
On the notion of intellectual property Rebecca Howard analyzes the
consequences of crimes committed with this newfound idea of authorship
in her work Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty.
As a professor at Colgate University (About) she published this work in
1995 for a peer reviewed collective of english experts. Now she is an
undergraduate and graduate professor at Syracuse University (About)
and has since gotten her PhD. Howards main focus of analysis is
plagiarism and the policies that educational institutions uphold for crimes of
plagiarism. Howard firmly believes that students should be able to use
already known information and publications as resources without fear of
academic penalty. Ever since the printing press authorship has become
lucrative. Before authorship became an industry, ideas flew freely
throughout cultures without much care for intellectual property.
Howard explains throughout her work different examples of
plagiarism and how they affect the educational system. The three most
common forms of plagiarism are patchwriting, not citing sources correctly
and what is most obvious, copy and paste. Howard is credited with coining
the term patchwriting, a type of plagiarism (Howard 788), as well as many
other terms. She also addresses the question, how do you determine if
something is plagiarism and how do you punish those who have committed

Ahlers and Norelius 2

plagiarism? The modern education system uniformly punishes the act of

plagiarism severely by failure of the assignment, the course, or even
suspension from school. Howard argues against this, she advocates for
policies that review cases of plagiarism to determine the student's intent
and based on the kind of plagiarism used determines the punishment. We
all know copy and paste to be complete plagiarism but what about
patchwriting? Howard argues that patchwriting is an educational tool but
should not be used as the submitted work of the student. Most institutions
are adamant that plagiarism should be punished no matter what. Howard
agrees that there should be consequences for those who plagiarise but she
knows there to be value in the sharing of communal ideas and information.
There are examples throughout history of plagiarism but instead of
being punished for these actions many are revered. One of the most well
known cases of plagiarism that led to great inspiration and success was
that of Martin Luther King. Through the use of plagiarism King was able to
spark a social movement by utilizing previous works from others in his
community. One of Howard's most frequently mentioned metaphors was
that of the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant (Howard 790). The metaphor is
an interpretation of all literary ideas that have been established in previous
works and how one can observe and take these works further by using
them as a foundation. Basically people who plagiarize are not more or less
intellectual than those they gained information from, instead these so called
plagiarizers are able to take the subject slightly further than those previous.
Howard explains the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant metaphor by saying
always already. This does not excuse copying and pasting this values being
able to use previously published works to further the education of a
community (Howard 792-793).

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Plagiarism is ironic. Educational institutions want you to use the

resources at your disposal but they limit students in their ability to. Just as
crimes are given a fair trial by a judge, educational crimes such as
plagiarism should also be given a fair trial by an academic advisor.
Reviewing cases for plagiarism should be based on students previous
activities such as cheating on tests or academic misconducts. This will
allow the punishment to be more specific and fitting on a case by case
basis. Plagiarism policies of today allow for broad misinterpretations and
unfitting punishments that can lead to the hindering of students education
in the classroom.
Bibliography
"About." Rebecca Moore Howard RSS. The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2015. Web. 30
Sept. 2015.
Howard, Rebecca Moore. "Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty."
College English 57.7 (1995): 788. Web.