Paraphrasing

Preparing to Paraphrase

 Understanding is key to proper paraphrasing

"From the horse's mouth, Parthenon Frieze, June 2012", by Stellos ZACHARIAS, CC

 As writers we’ve all been schooled (or scolded) to “put things in our own words.” But this dictate is sort of like the “common knowledge” concept covered in the previous post. Paraphrasing that “pops” and escapes plagiarism isn’t as self-explanatory as we might initially think.

The Melania Trump speech debacle gives us some insight into the thorny patch of paraphrasing – like trying to reword some long-standing cultural ideals and catch phrases.

During a CNN program hosted by Wolf Blitzer, Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spicer might have made matters worse by seeming to trivialize Melania’s word choice when he compared her statements with those made by an animated “My Little Pony” character. Or, he may have had a point, no matter how thinly it was stretched…

"Melania Trump said, 'The strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them,' [and] Twilight Sparkle from 'My Little Pony' said, 'This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams you can do now.’ I mean, if we want to take a bunch of phrases and run them through Google and say, 'Hey, who else has said them?' I could come up with a list in five minutes. And that’s what this is."

America, America…what other words for thee?

Point is, when you think about mottos, catch phrases, and sweeping generalizations about America, especially “The American Dream,” how many different approaches are there in rehashing and rewording? The declaration to “work hard” is what it is, and when we read it or hear it, there’s the gloss and the comfort and maybe the pride of having heard it since infancy.

 A Christian Science Monitor article by John J. Pitney reminds us that “cribbing quotes” is nothing new to the political sphere. Hillary was likewise accused…by Sean Spicer…of having “borrowed” an American trope during her Democratic National Convention speech. But it turns out the phrase she used – “America is great because America is good” – isn’t even clearly attributed to Alexis De Tocqueville’s work “Democracy in America.”

Paraphrasing: Doing it, and Doing it well

 Does “in our own words” simply mean swapping out adjectives? Changing the sentence structure of the source we’re paraphrasing from? Both?

The Purdue Online Writing Lab covers the basics of what paraphrasing is:

• ·         your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.

• ·         one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.

• ·         a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Purdue stresses that paraphrasing is an essential activity in demonstrating a deeper comprehension of the subject at hand, and eliminates the overuse of lengthy quotes. While some media call for more quotes than others, excessive inclusion of quotes will leave the story feeling strung together without a sense of reflection or place.

Purdue recommends following the “6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing”:

1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Oh, or you could just use the free online paraphrasing tool. Of course they have one of those! Goparaphrase.com works much like the plagiarism “checker” tools I highlighted in previous posts. There’s an empty text box for you to dump your copied and pasted Pulitzer ready words into, just as before, but the difference is, this tool will do the thinking/work for you. It claims to be an “article rewriting/text spinning tool.” Just what the world needs, more spin right? I would never seriously recommend this, but it might prove entertaining.

In the end, it’s which horse’s mouth the information is spewing forth from of that matters. I encourage everyone to follow the oft funny political debate about who misappropriated who on Twitter at: #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes and Spicer’s feed.

Who Knows What We Know?

Efforts to define “common knowledge” sometimes fall short

Common sense. General knowledge. We throw these terms around, and claim that no one seems to possess them anymore. They become catch alls, big bottomless buckets for everything that every individual thinks every other individual should know. They are “givens.” They’re inherent, supposedly, or at least concepts so rudimentary, we should have them imprinted into our thick skulls, by now.

But, as I think we all know by now, common sense and general knowledge don’t belong in a written scholarly debate. So maybe this is what we mean by “book smarts?” Knowledge that you can refer back to, in print somewhere, not just some ancient decree. Common sense and general knowledge, if these concepts really exist at all, don’t take us very far in arguments or in life, and the vast majority of the time, they won’t keep us from having to defend our references or save us from citation.

There are some exceptions, of course. Let’s see where some academic sources stand on common and general knowledge, and how they come to define and determine these concepts. So get your waders on, again.

According to the Purdue Writing Lab, the following instances are, under certain circumstances, considered “common knowledge” by some but not all sources:

·         current and historical events, famous people, geographic areas, etc.

·         nonfactual material such as folklore and common sayings

·         common knowledge can be determined at the level of a small group (like a class) or a based on subject matter

Are you feeling any more confident about your grasp of common knowledge? Because I’m not.

Common Knowledge Decision Factors

1.)    Quantity: Some say that a fact found in 3 separate sources can safely be deemed common knowledge. Purdue errs on the safe side, not making that call until the statement is made in at least 5 “independent” references.

2.)    Ubiquity: writers may find themselves skipping attribution when they are not carefully considering the knowledge base of their target audience. For example, a science student may not think to cite a fact that is a foundational or elementary concept in his or her field, but if the audience extends to that other blended motley crew, the “general public,” the knowledge is no longer prevalent and understood.

3.)    General Reference: Facts that are assumed to be available to the widest audience through “dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs and gazetteers,” according to Purdue, do not usually need citation. Specialized references, like medical dictionaries, do.

It’s interesting to note that different academic institutions have different perspectives on common knowledge. MIT defines common knowledge as

“information that the average, educated reader would accept as reliable without having to look it up,” like “information that most people know, such as that water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit…”

Princeton makes an especially compelling comment about common knowledge in the digital age:

The new era of electronic media and the Internet has made this issue even more complex and uncertain. The depersonalized nature of electronic information can devalue the sense of intellectual ownership: the information seems to belong to nobody and to everybody. The protocols for borrowing, reusing, and modifying information on the Web are less well-defined than they are in more traditional scholarly research and far less diligently observed. Indeed, much of the ethic of the Internet, which emerged from the computer culture of collaborative work and shareware, is in tension with the values and practices of traditional scholarship, especially in the humanities and social sciences. With the Web’s countless sites offering text and images for the taking, and with commercial sites offering free educational versions of their software, the lines between public and private ownership of intellectual property have become blurry.

 

All sources agree on one thing – when in doubt cite, cite, cite.

 

 

 

 

Counterfeit Crosswords

A plagiarism scandal threatens the career of the most syndicated crossword puzzle editor

 

 

Thus far, plagiarism as we know it can copy a string of words (or musical arrangement) verbatim, or lazily paraphrase without attribution, changing and switching up words (or notes) here and there. If you have any inkling towards learning more about plagiarism, you probably are interested or engage in writing, and therefore you probably get a kick out of words.

Any crossword puzzle fans among us? I admit, I’m a fair weather fan. If I partake it’s only at work; I only glance at the NY Times version, which usually reminds me of a sickeningly pompous and pretentious mix of jeopardy themes and high falutin pop culture references. The clues are tongue and cheek enough to sound like word vomit, to me. Ok, I’m probably just not hip enough. Oh wait, look, it has been accused of “fustiness” along with racist and sexist undertones.

I like my crosswords a little more straightforward (and with a lot less movie and philosopher nods). As I struggled to get past 4 or 5 widely spaced words, I don’t think I recognized the themes that loosely hold the whole black and white block together. Abstract, but not so different from recognizing a motif or theme within an actual block of text, right?

Ever consider the work that goes into creating a crossword puzzle…an original each day, when it comes to newspaper publications…and then ponder the fact that they can be plagiarized?

Exposed, as in Timothy Parker

Oliver Roeder wrote an article for FiveThirtyEight titled A Plagiarism Scandal Is Unfolding In The Crossword World, detailing how digital puzzlers uncovered a string of similarities between Universal Crossword and USA Today Crossword editor Timothy Parker’s published puzzles, and numerous New York Times Crosswords over the years.

The gross likenesses between many puzzles turned up through collaborative detective work between a puzzle creator who saw one of his submissions to Universal be run and rerun at least three times, years apart, and once under a different author’s name, and the software engineer Saul Pwanson. Pwanson collected about 30,000 crossword puzzles into a database, joined to another vast collection of digital only crosswords provided by Barry Haldiman. Pwanson wrote code into the program to identify puzzle similarities of at least 25%.

Parker was accused of editing 65 crosswords that shared the same some combination of themes, placement of theme answers on the grid, grid placement, and clues with earlier New York Times crosswords.

Word spread quickly through Twitter and other social media, sending shockwaves through the usually sedate crossword world.

When Roeder interviewed Parker and questioned him about the allegations, Parker “…chalked it up to the statistical inevitability of having edited so many puzzles over the years. “Out of 15,000, I’m not surprised at all,” he said. “I would expect it to be a couple of hundred.”

The Theme Thickens

As explained by Slate writer and “professional crossword constructor” Matt Gaffney before and after the Parker scandal broke, coincidences do occur with some frequency, cataloged and scaled across the data compiled online. It’s the level of exact replication of clues, placement and themes that tips those scales toward abject plagiarism.

Roeder spoke with two copyright lawyers about the allegations. Kevan Choset, a practitioner of law and crossword building, told Roeder there are “‘extremely strong arguments’ that crosswords are protected by copyright law.” But, as this Opinion piece in the Washington Post by David Post conveys, there is a general consensus and contention that “theme theft” alone is not illegal, but fuels a vapid indignation.

A follow-up article by Roeder on May 16, 2016 announced USA Today’s parent company, Gannett, will no longer run any crossword puzzle edited by Parker. According to Roeder, Universal Uclick, Parker’s employer, concluded Parker could return to work for that company after a three-month leave, and that “processes and reviews had been put in place to ensure that all puzzles would be original from now on.”

As pointed out by Roeder in this article, updated information regarding the case can be followed on Twitter under hashtag #gridgate.

Copyright and/or Plagiarism

Copyright and/or Plagiarism?

Distinguishing between legality and ethics

"maybe" public domain



public domain

From Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus:

Plagiarism:  the act of using another person's words or ideas without giving credit to that person : the act of plagiarizing something

Copyright: the legal right to be the only one to reproduce, publish, and sell a book, musical recording, etc., for a certain period of time

Infringement: 1. the act of infringing violation

2.an encroachment or trespass on a right or privilege

So, “copyright infringement” would mean a “violation,” “encroachment,” or “trespass” on copyrights.

A Plagiarism Today post titled Copyright Infringement, Plagiarism and Fair Use attempts to clarify the relativity and the important differences between these terms.

The most prominent difference is legality; violating the terms of copyright material is illegal, punishable by civil and sometimes criminal charges. The terms of copyright can be complex, the PT article says:

“You can infringe upon a copyright in many different ways. You can duplicate a work, rewrite a piece, perform a written work or do anything that is normally considered to be the exclusive right of the copyright holder. As such, copyright infringement is a very broad term that describes a variety of acts.”

So, you can violate copyright agreements even while praising the original artist and clearly declaring that they are the creator/author…or the person or entity who now holds the copyright.

Plagiarism specifically requires the lack of attribution; while you can plagiarize and violate copyright at the same time, you can violate copyright without plagiarizing. PT points out that plagiarism is:

“considered to be a much more morally heinous act as it involves deception (lying to others about the origins of the work) and generally has a much greater impact on the copyright holder.”

The earliest copyright laws of course concerned written works. The first United States copyright law came into being in 1790, granting exclusive ownership of a work for up to 2 consecutive 14 year periods, after which the work necessarily became public domain. This original law has been amended many times as new technology demands; The Copyright Act of 1831 was amended to include musical compositions, and the first period of ownership was doubled to 28 years; a 1912 amendment included “motion pictures” and a 1971 amendment included sound recordings, and so on and so forth, with additional copyright term extensions along the way. (www.historyofcopyright.org)

Copyright protects so many aspects of our “common” experience that we are often still surprised that certain things are not free to use.

Take for example the happy birthday song. While it’s fair use to sing the song to your friend, brother or grandma in the privacy of your own home and for noncommercial use, Happy Birthday had a hefty price tag attached anytime you heard it on the radio, saw it recited on television or in movies…or even had it sung to you by over-zealous and underpaid chain restaurant staff, much to your embarrassment.

According to a Claims Journal article, Warner-Chappell Music Group (a division of Time Warner) owned copyright of the song from 1988 until a court hearing last September, brought against Warner-Chappell from disgruntled artists sick of paying steep fees for the songs use. The suit traced the songs long copyright history, from the melody’s creation by two sisters in Kentucky in 1893 whose song “Good Morning to All” had nothing to do with birthdays (although one sister later claimed rights to the ubiquitous birthday lyrics too), to their publisher the Clayton F. Summy Co./Birchtree, to Warner-Chappell.

A detail in the copyright was found to have given Clayton F. Summy Co. rights to the tune and piano arrangement, but no claim to any lyrics. Thus, Warner-Chappell could no longer proclaim ownership, either.

Jay Morgenstern, executive vice president of Warner-Chappell at the time the New York Times/Associated Press article Happy Birthday and the Money It Makes was published in 1989, was quoted as revealing that at that time, the company was rewarded up to $50,000 each time the song was used in a film, and $750-$5,000 for use in television.

As part of a more recent court ruling, according to this Reuters/Hindustan Times article, Warner-Chappell will be the one paying up now…$14,000,000 in settlement fees since their copyright claims unraveled.

For more about this intriguing example of the intricacies of copyright, see:

‘Happy Birthday to You’ Now in the Public Domain (Sort of)

‘Happy Birthday’ Song Loses Copyright, Now in Public Domain

BOO: A Brief Introduction to the Concept and Field of Ghostwriting:

Check yourself before you wreck yourself: what online plagiarism checkers can do for you

The talented and long-established rapper Ice Cube claims that statement. Well, really it’s “yo self.” But to Google, it’s relative enough, and credit is given where credit is due.

 

Caveman 3 The cave boy of the age of stone, Margaret A. McIntyre Wikimedia Commons

 

While various digital applications and programs can help keep an ethical writer organized and presumptive, others claim they can discover the disingenuous.

“Plagiarism checker” services abound on the internet. Most function in a very similar fashion – you enter a section(s) of text from a document you want to be certain has not already been created by another author or pilfered from you, the “checker” scans all sources made available to it on the web, returning results to you in seconds. Since there are so many different versions, I thought it might be fun to explore them, and find out what they really know about all of those precariously-strung-together sentences that are floating in cyberspace, tethered to someone’s name…or freefalling.

The site plagiarismchecker.com relies on Google and Yahoo! search engine results to spot potential plagiarism. In a blank search box (surrounded by cluttered ad space and an outdated layout with the only information under the “New Resources” section dating back an entire decade), you can enter up a sentence or pieces of sentences from throughout a document. Google can only handle thirtyty-two words at a time, while Yahoo! works with up to fifty.

I tried to enter a sentence from an article I wrote for the Allegheny West Magazine’s January 2015  Moon edition, titled In search of Moon’s first residents:

“Earl, the most recent president of the Old Moon Township Historical Society, has had a lifelong interest in Native American cultures.”

Simple enough. What did Google say?

No quoted results were found. The Moon Township Historical Society’s website came up first. Then another township reference. Then things got abstracted and far-fetched quickly…Upper Mississippi River cruises… “Quaker Lady”…references to my article did not come up. I tried the Yahoo! search option.

Nothing pointing in my direction! Instead, articles from IN Moon township by IN Community Magazines (our competitor!) were listed. How rude.

So instead, I entered the article’s title and bingo. It’s first on Yahoo!’s list, and first and only on Google. Glad my work is kinda sorta out there, but this does nothing to detect or prevent plagiarism. Anyone could claim the following sentence as their own, as oddly unique to the situation I experienced first person as it is:

“Earl positions the milky, cream colored rock, known as Flintridge Ohio chert, carefully on the dining room table. His wife, Mary Ellen, sits next to large charts, black and white sketches outlining the particular features of Northeastern Native American spearpoints, arrowheads, blades and other tools, divided into timelines and tribes.”

Weird, and seems problematic. What if I try a sentence from a renowned publication, like this obscure tidbit from Orion Magazine’s November/December 2014 edition article by Leath Tonino entitled 7 Mountains I Did Not Conquer:

“Delicately, ever so delicately, I picked a line through the chaos.”

Google-bang-boom, Google brought up the exact reference in 0.54 seconds. It’s cool; I’m obviously not in the same league as Leath, but I did sit with a man trying to demonstrate an archaic form of tool making at his dining room table. It’s not mountain climbing but SEO you SOB, throw my name out there.

Sorry. I’m not sure what any of this means. I tried my “milky, cream-colored rock” deal in Grammarly.com Plagiarism and Proofreader next.

Grammarly is a great resource for all sorts of, well, grammar questions (and they tweet some pretty cute and oh-so “punny” grammar comics and cartoons).

 

 

The page is crisp, polished and intuitive, refreshing coming straight from plagiarismchecker.com. They claim to check your entered text against a staggering 8 billion webpages, and “instantly find and correct over 250 types of grammatical mistakes.”

Alas, Grammarly did not recognize me as an author. They were helpful enough to let me know “We didn’t find any plagiarism, but we found 4 writing issues.” Kick me while I’m down, why don’t you.

Honestly, I’m finding this too frustratingly fun to end here. Join me, Earl and that rock in my next post, when we try out more “anti-plagiarism” software, and hopefully come to some conclusions about what all of this implies.