Plagiarism Assignment

In regards to plagiarism, Lethem writes,

“The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.” (Lethem 224-225)

Instead of defining plagiarism itself, Lethem categorizes the majority of human knowledge as plagiarism. Under most circumstances, no person can say anything original because their ideas draw elements from countless outside sources. Any “original” idea that one may have is a result of extensive influence from unrecognized sources. However, this is distinct from the Rutgers definition of plagiarism. By the Rutgers definition, plagiarism requires that a student deliberately try to pass off someone else’s work as their own by word-for-word copying or paraphrasing. In Lethem’s definition, ideas are plagiarism because they require the thinker to synthesize various past experiences. While the idea may not be original, it still requires the thinker to make an active insight on how to combine multiple sources. On the other hand, traditional plagiarism is simply taking a specific author’s whole idea and claiming it as an idea formulated under Lethem’s definition of plagiarism.