I have been thinking about plagiarism and PowerPoint presentations (interesting the way spell-check wanted to capitalize that, but can’t find ostrobogulous in its dictionary). Point taken already—give credit where credit is due. So why can we all use PowerPoint to express ourselves and seemingly hold a copyright on the show itself? Isn’t the format copyrighted to the extent that we can’t legally do that? No, you say, because books have pretty much the same format and so do academic papers for that matter. Then why capitalize Power Point? And why do we have to pay to use it? This is where all the talk about technical communication starts getting funky for me; I’m just not sure where the lines are drawn. You can borrow some things, but not others. In Reyman’s “Rethinking Plagiarism for Technical Communication,” the author attempts to shed some light on this subject as well as propose that new lines be drawn, specifically for technical communication. In order for me to wrap my feeble brain around some of the issues, I’ve had to liken them to an area I have (albeit not much) experience in, which is writing lesson plans.
Attend any English conference and you will walk away with an armload of lesson plans, usually none of which have a “copyright” clearly emblazoned on them. In fact, teachers are encouraged to plagiarize—that is, take the plan, use it, and make any changes you like whereby it becomes yours. Personally, I have written “adapted from” at the bottom if I used someone else’s plan and changed it, but that’s certainly not a requirement (and only when I was giving the changed version to someone else). There are websites, such as the National Counsel of Teachers of English (NCTE), which have tons of viewable lessons plans complete with a “printer-friendly version” icon. No one seems worried about getting paid for the print and every lesson I’ve received from an author comes with the implicit agreement to email the author if you can improve the plan in any way. Long story short, it’s a collaboration. I think technical communication is pretty much the same because the formats are similar and people consistently work together toward the improvement of the final product. Read: “progress.” Furthermore, regarding technical communication, it seems silly to consider something as “plagiarized” just because the format is standardized. Letters, numerals, colors, tastes, are all standardized. We have to all speak the same language if we are to understand and learn from one another and/or work together.
So here I am, fighting for the right to say that these things aren’t plagiarized, but there’s a sneaking suspicion about the motivation. I realize that while I’m busy yelling to consider things “standardized” instead of “plagiarized,” the people who are making the standardization so free are actually the people who would most like to see Americans as cattle to be herded. Ah ha, that’s the long-term goal nowadays, isn’t it? For everyone to speak/think/behave alike and be good workers for big business? Why else would PowerPoint presentations be so user-friendly? So they’ve got me fighting for what they want. Amazing. Great. Now I’m even more confused.
3 comments:
Perhaps if you copied that floppy of Power Point, you might be infringing on its copyright. Or if you take its code and modify it the hounds of Microsoft might descend upon your hard drive. Who knows.
Dr. Reyman's point that technical writing requires a modified set of standards for plagiarism seems sensible. Her point isn't that all plagiarism standards should be modified, as Howard suggests, just those that address writing at variance with standard academic writing.
I simply fail to grasp the gravity of this debate, or even why there seems to be a debate. Slack, Miller, and Doak raise a similar silly ruckus in their essay. They attempt to elevate "theories" of communication to the status of science simply by comparing the two. Apparently, they do so in order to pronounce authorship on technical writers and/or communicators.
When they articulated that ridiculous train analogy to support a claim that rocks really can be stony creatures, I thought that perhaps I had slipped down a wormhole.
I don't believe, though, that your last point about marching in lockstep with Disney and the dancing queens really includes members of the humanities discourse, does it? After all, most current theories owe allegiance to either Foucault or Marx.
It does seem obvious that technical writing is different from academic writing and should be treated as such, so why is the notion of technical writer as (a different) author hard to accept?
Just as authors of fiction have built upon other works to create their own (e.g., Superman, Spiderman, and Batman—how many variations of “new” superheroes can we have?) technical writers build upon existing works to create new works—derivative works—that should be considered original.
I would suggest that technical and professional communication calls not for a redefinition of authorship, but an expansion of it. For me, that expansion happens in a simple enough way -- through introduction of a genuine notion of collaboration. Howard, I think, misappropriated the term, but much of what happens in technical communication is genuine collaboration -- cooperative creation (the fact that authorship of the created product is often attributed to or assumed by a single person who may or may not have had anything to do with the actual creation problematizes this idea). One of the most useful things I think Slack and co. have done is help orient our conceptions of authorship in a way that allows for real collaboration between author and audience (something we often strive for in the theater).
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