Long Term Consequences

Just as Capstar works with fleas, searching the Internet for matching word patterns detects plagiarism. Both treat the immediate condition. Neither eradicates the source or prevents its recurrence.

Sometimes fleas are picturesque: the novelistic portrayals, or “flea bites,” those tiny dings in use-worn marbles. Mostly, fleas and plagiarism are less than ideal.
They’re a parasite on the host: the dog or the Internet;
They have a tendency to spread effects to the unsuspecting: members of the family, and students who did their own work;
They are socially unacceptable in certain circles and the norm in others;
One culture encourages the infestation while another wants to fumigate it out of existence, and supports an industry designed to do just that.

Even the usually revered Founding Fathers paraphrased their sources, someone could argue. Ah, but the Founding Fathers believed in working for a cause, education, and thinking.

Some of my students spend hours writing, thinking, writing, researching, and laboring over their final copy. They didn't enjoy devoting nights and weekends to the project. They committed the time because the essay was a class assignment, because they believed my comments ("With each writing you do, you will become a better writer"). They don't see the long term result yet, but they appreciate the short term satisfaction of completing an assignment and receiving positive comments when it comes back to them. They also deeply resent the people who economized on time and improved hand coordination by copy/pasting a response posted elsewhere, written by someone else. As an instructor, I've spent hours before I hand out the assignment, trying to create directions that will encourage students to do their own work, their own thinking, their own writing. I've shared rough drafts of the assignment with others, asking "How can I make it better?" Collectively, we (the students and I) resent copying: they because they want everyone to be equal, I think. I because I want everyone to think and write.

The plagiarists, confronted with "their" essay as it appeared elsewhere under someone else's name have reacted with nonchalance. They have shrugged. They have said their roommate/friend/parent was the one responsible for copying. They have said that the online source copied from them. I give my "It's about thinking" response. Sometimes they nod their heads to indicate they have heard me (or so I stop explaining). Plagiarism is being untrue to yourself as well as others. That’s one perspective I tell myself, as I return to reading a stack of essays.


We finished sealing the cedar gazebo. For weeks, our garage smelled of cedar, that wood more aromatic than pine or redwood. Cedar is less expensive than some of the other choices, it's somewhat weather-resistant even without sealing the wood, and it's beautiful. Knots and grain in the boards make each piece of wood unique.

For weeks, I would open the door, and draw a deep breath. Board by board over the summer, we moved materials from storage to construction, figuring out how the cross pieces fit into the frame, how the roof could be attached. To protect the wood more than its natural resistance offered, we wanted to waterproof it, and did. Which led eventually to my idea of decorating the patio.
“I can tell where you painted,” Bob said, pointing. “Everywhere you worked on it, you left a mess underneath. Bob is right: I am a Messy Painter.

I have a Painting Outfit: oversize t shirt with souvenirs of each project (dark green, blue, white, cream, yellow, teal, and a splotch large as a handprint on one shoulder where I thoughtlessly rested a paint-covered hand), and somewhat less paint-decorated shorts. “Everyone has specific talents,” I tell my students. “Some of you are great at Finding Jobs, or Getting a Boyfriend, or Cooking.” One of my talents is Messy Painter.

I can wash the shirt and shorts, but it’s going to be a little more difficult to remove sealant splotches from the concrete. “What if we make it artistic?” I ask. “I can drop paint of all different colors around there, and it will look nice.”
“I think it would look weird,” he says.
But maybe if I practice on an unsuspecting surface…? Random spots of color, wherever they happen to fall from the brush…play to my talent of Messy Painter?