Kidnapping Scholarship: Reckoning, Regulating, and Reimagining Plagiarism

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Online Thumbnail Credits: The Met Open Access Collection; Credit Line: he Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 2015

Kidnapping Scholarship: Reckoning, Regulating, and Reimagining Plagiarism

- Written by The Critic

One of the very first things I recall learning in my undergraduate degree was the concept of academic misconduct, specifically through the act of plagiarism. The definition, at least as I remember it, was neat and tidy: plagiarism is passing off work that is not your own as your own. It was presented as a moral and intellectual crime, something to be avoided at all costs. And since that day, I have carried this definition with me, repeating it with a kind of confidence whenever the topic arose.

And yet, over the years, I have encountered countless moments where this neat definition has failed to make sense within the actual practices of researching, reading, and writing. There have been many times, especially after immersing myself in a collection of works of a single author, when I begin to unknowingly borrow, mimic, or reproduce not only their ideas but also their particular rhythms of expression. The boundaries between my “own” voice (and ideas) and the voice (and ideas) of another blur. It is not a deliberate act of theft or trying to pass off someone else’s ideas as my own but a natural byproduct of close, prolonged study: I absorb the patterns of thought and language until they unknowingly become almost like my own. I often do not even notice this happening until someone else points it out. My partner has, on several occasions, interrupted me mid-conversation to say, “You sound like you’ve been reading [this author] again.” And in that moment I realise that my words have taken on an accent that is not mine, that I am speaking with a body borrowed from elsewhere.

In those moments, the definition of plagiarism that was handed down to me in that undergraduate lecture begins to nag at my conscience. Am I guilty of something here? Is it wrong that my manner of speaking, even my way of thinking – not only how, but also, what I think – is changing under the influence of another, to the point that I am almost posing as someone else without even acknowledging who I’m posing as? 

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