Before this class I didn't really pay much attention to plagiarism. Now that we're reading about it, I realize it's difficult to understand because there are so many rules that apply to it. To me it just feels like we all plagiarize and there's no way that we can be completely original. Everything we do and everything we say in our every day lives comes from things we've been through and heard. In chapter 2 page 32 originality is defined as "a quality thought to spring from a unique essence, soul, or genius". People have been around for thousands and it seems like they were the only people who were truly original. Billions of people have been on this earth and ideas and thoughts have been passed down from generation to generation that we are bound to agree and have the same thoughts as people who were here centuries ago. When I was reading this chapter I thought of the group presentations we did and some of the examples people gave. One of the examples my group gave about originality was about a person learning their first or a new language. When someone is learning a completely new language, they have no choice but to copy what they hear. If that counts as plagiarism then we have all plagiarized. When we were born, we had no knowledge of the world and things around us. We learned from our parents, who learned from their parents and so on.
There are so many ways people can and have plagiarized. People can plagiarize through writing, talking, and even singing. The book talks about people copying from t.v. shows they've seen, songs, movies, etc. I can relate to that because I find myself actually doing it a lot of times. One of my favorite t.v. shows is "Friends". I own all ten seasons and love watching the episodes. I sometimes use some of the phrases they say in the show when I am having conversations with people that have also seen the episodes I've watched.
I also see how difficult it is to make citations. If you get something from someone that got something from someone else, which I believe is the case in most instances, then the citations would be never ending.
In the Gladwell article, I don't really understand why the author felt no need to acknowledge the psychiatrist. The author acknowledges others but not the psychiatrist. If she acknowledged some then all of them should have been acknowledged. It's true that the author created something new and different and not every detail was the same but she should have been consistent with her citations.
Plagiarism is a complicated topic.
As for the citations, it depends -- if you're analyzing a piece of literature, for example, you might only be citing that text to support your interpretations. And for other kinds of academic writing, the idea is usually that you cite the most relevant sources -- so you don't have to cite everything that's ever been written on a topic, but you would probably want to cite the most recent and/or the most seminal texts written on the subject. It really depends on the context, the audience, and what YOU as a writer are trying to do.
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