Here is an excerpt from an
article called “Plagiarism Doesn’t Bother
Me” by Professor Gerald Nelms:
2. In some “real-world” contexts, plagiarism is not only
acceptable but is expected. Brian Martin calls this “institutionalized
plagiarism.”
Plagiarism is as tied to context as every other
aspect of language use. In our everyday conversations—and lectures and
classroom discussions—we frequently give information without citing its
source(s). Moreover, there exist contexts where plagiarism is not only
acceptable but is expected and encouraged. Audience expectations and
intellectual property conventions of the community in which the language use
occurs determines whether adopting source material and expression without
citation is acceptable or not. “Institutional plagiarism” frequently occurs and
is accepted without even the lifting of an eyebrow in most daily business
communications and in other bureaucratic contexts.For example, if a company employee were to try to compose a
quarterly report with original language and organization, her supervisor would
probably take her aside and explain that to be more efficient, she should
simply adopt the organization and language of past quarterly reports.
Some might argue that “institutionalized plagiarism”
is acceptable because the language and forms being plagiarized are “common
knowledge.” That may be the case in some instances of institutionalized
plagiarism but not in every case. Too often, we decontextualize common
knowledge, thinking of it as facts every child learns in school or as
information that exists in at least five (or whatever number of) credible
sources, as some textbooks have defined it. In fact, content alone does not
define knowledge as “common.” Common knowledge is that which is presumed to be
ubiquitous or, at least, widespread within a specific community—that is, in
context. Not all institutionalized plagiarism fits that bill.
Consider, for example, the annual reports
that a company will publish and distribute to its investors and creditors and
auditors and public officials and anyone else who might be interested. Annual
reports are notoriously templated. They follow the same organizational structure
every year. They almost invariably use a similar vocabulary, the same phrases,
the same sentences in many instances. Yet, no one accuses the authors, often
anonymous or named in the fine print, of plagiarism. No investors divest
themselves of holdings in a company because its annual report is
institutionally plagiarized.
This excerpt uses two common examples of business
writing in discussing ways in which information is plagiarized – or not –
depending, perhaps upon the view of those in a particular business setting.
There are two worthwhile questions to consider
concerning what Nelms tells us about these seemingly plagiarizing practices of
business/professional writing. In a short paragraph, respond to the following:
1) Based on your experience, have you seen such
practices in your work? Give an example. Why do you think this practice is
rather common in business/professional writing?
2) Where do you think the practice of using the same
format, even the same language, for business documents might have come from?
Can you think of any examples of when you have noticed the use of what is
sometimes called “boilerplate” documents and language?
