Read and learn. Should you attempt the delicate feat of being at once a revered intellectual and an occasional plagiarist, and should your plagiarism be discovered by some graduate student, say this:
[W]hile admiring the pedantry of the authors of the Harvard Guide to Using Sources, and acknowledging their gallant defence of the private ownership of knowledge, I failed in those 60-odd years to spot the influence of the obedience to technical procedural rules of quotations on the quality (reliability, effectiveness and above all social importance) of scholarship: the two issues that Mr Walsh obviously confuses…
Let’s note the elements of Zygmunt Bauman’s response, one by one.
[W]hile admiring the pedantry of the authors of the Harvard Guide to Using Sources, [I laugh condescendingly at the small-mindedness of anyone who would compile a book of rules about proper citation. Such books are for little people – like the little person who has had the presumption to try to attack my eminence.] and acknowledging their gallant defence of the private ownership of knowledge, [I am a committed (way committed in my youth but that’s none of your business) man of the left who stands way above the petty and absurd defense of private property which is the entire concept ‘plagiarism.’] I failed in those 60-odd years to spot the influence of the obedience to technical procedural rules of quotations on the quality (reliability, effectiveness and above all social importance) of scholarship: the two issues that Mr Walsh obviously confuses… [Sure, I could be a citation nazi; I could lose all my social importance via lockstep ‘obedience’ to ‘rules,’ but this behavior is beneath me. Plus my attacker is ‘obviously’ an idiot.]
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a winner.
April 3rd, 2014 at 3:22PM
Does the Harvard Guide to Using Sources cover this strategy? Maybe that’s just a quote from someone pretending to be Zygmunt Bauman.