Originality, imitation, and plagiarism [Book Notes]

April 22nd, 2008 Stewart

Originality, imitation, and plagiarism : teaching writing in the digital age [WorldCat.org]

OU-Tulsa
Call number PN 167 O75 2008

(With this post, I’m adding a feature to my blog to point out noteworthy additions to the OU-Tulsa Library book collection. In the future, for a quick run-down of all these posts, just select “book notes” under Categories on the right-hand column.)

Plagiarism is a significant problem for higher ed in the internet age. This text, edited by Caroline Eisner and Martha Vicinus, does an admirable job of bringing to light all the concerns and opportunities compositionists and writing instructors now face. Three sections, Originality, Imitation and Plagiarism, respectively, contain chapters that fully examine the nuances of these concerns in modern academic writing.

For example, the section on Originality includes discussions on copyright in the information economy, ethics in scientific scholarly publishing, open access publishing in physics, and authorship versus authority in the age of the wiki. Imitation authors consider the role of genre writing, education through imitation, and the changing nature of “common knowledge” over time. The final section, Plagiarism, discusses matters of plagiarism as part of an academic discipline, as copyright infringement, as regards detection software (Turnitin.com), and as a convention of the Western academic culture.

Nothing about this book suggests a “light” treatment of these issues; instead, authors from a diverse range of backgrounds and interests consider these issues deeply and with consideration. A commendable effort, and one which should be of interest to anyone who writes for scholarship, or who assigns writing assignments to their students.

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Researchers who don’t write aren’t researchers

April 16th, 2008 Stewart

Merck ghostwrote major drug trials and published them under the researchers’ names.

Sadly, there is really nothing all that shocking about this. It’s a well-known, little-discussed fact in modern medical academe: If a drug company foots the bill on your research, odds are they’ll also write up your results for you, thank you very much.

Here’s an astonishing quote from the NYT write-up:

A third author, also not named on the initial draft, was Dr. Louis Kirby, currently the medical director for the company Provista Life Sciences. In an e-mail message on Tuesday, Dr. Kirby said that as a clinical investigator for the study he had enrolled more patients, 109, than any of the other researchers. He also said he made revisions to the final document.

“The fact that the draft was written by a Merck employee for later discussion by all the authors does not in and of itself constitute ghostwriting,” Dr. Kirby’s e-mail message said.

Actually, Dr. Kirby, that’s pretty much a textbook definition of ghostwriting: to write for and in the name of another. And for those researchers who actually write about the results of their research themselves, believe me, they know the difference quite well. They sweat hour upon hour over minute details of their work and their words, they push panicky deadlines, and they bite their nails during peer review.

Instead, Dr. Kirby might do well to familiarize himself with another term:

Hack writer: a writer who is deemed to operate as a ‘mercenary’ or ‘pen for hire,’ expressing their client’s political opinions in pamphlets or newspaper articles; a mediocre and disdained writer

Researchers who let someone else ghostwrite their research? They don’t get to call themselves researchers anymore. Let’s call them what they are: Hacks.

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Growing Pains, Part II

February 11th, 2008 Stewart

The latest issue of Communications in Information Literacy was published this morning. I couldn’t be happier with the final product — We’ve got some really good articles and I think everyone involved should be really proud of their work.

We have other CIL projects waiting in the wings. One item we hope to wrap up this week or next is the print-on-demand volume (via Lulu.com). Proceeds from sales of the printed volume will help defray our publication costs, so if you are a librarian and you want to support our work, please talk with your collection managers about purchasing a volume for your stacks. Over 180 libraries have already cataloged the journal; if even half of them were to buy a copy for their print collections, that would (most likely) pay for our next six months of web hosting. We may also ask for donations in exchange for coffee mugs and other PBS-style gifts.

Also we’re about to announce the inclusion of our journal in a major library literature database. More to come about that soon.

Hopefully, other IL librarians will find what we’re doing of value. We need a primary journal for information literacy, and I think CIL is well poised to be that journal. If you have any suggestions or ideas that you would like to share, either with myself or co-editor Chris Hollister, just drop us a line at editors@comminfolit.org. Thanks!

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Back to the Blog!

January 19th, 2008 Stewart

My apologies for having left this blog unattended for as long as I did. I have a pretty valid reason for my disappearance, though.

After my last post back in May, I was recruited into a new job, as library director for the University of Oklahoma - Tulsa campus. With the impending move across the country, and a new library to learn inside and out, I made the decision to put the blog aside until the time felt right to pick it up again. With the new year just starting, and so many exciting things to report, I’ve decided to jump back into the blogosphere.

As the title suggests, “Professional Notes” has never been a particularly personal blog, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. My posts here will focus instead on my work life, both as a newly minted library director and as a scholar on matters related to information literacy, informatics, and the Millennial generation of learners. I also plan on having this blog double as my “director’s blog” for our new library web site (in development), so I will also post on matters related to the OU-Tulsa Library.

A little bit about the OU-Tulsa Library — We serve a diverse campus, one which blends programs from the Graduate College (including Architecture, Education, Library Science, Telecommunications, and an innovative new program in Organizational Dynamics) with traditional Health Sciences programs (including Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health). While the library has its roots as a medical library, the collections and services have grown to include many other disciplines. We’re continuing to grow and evolve, but this library has amazing potential, as does this campus, and I’m very excited about the role I will play in this continuing evolution.

I will be posting (more) regularly in the future. Thanks for reading!

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Quick stats on the new journal

May 11th, 2007 Stewart

Issue one of Communications in Information Literacy debuted at 4:00 pm yesterday, and here are a few numbers of which I’m particularly proud:

• Within 24 hours, each article in the first issue has been read by at least 100 people; some have been read substantially more than others.
• Within 24 hours, about 40 new users registered with CIL.
• We currently have over 200 users registered.
• The RSS feed works and people are using it — Okay, I don’t have a number on this one.

Co-founder Chris Hollister and I will be presenting all about CIL at WILU next week, so we’re getting geared up for that. And, oh yeah, the next issue…

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The Information Literacy Equation

March 9th, 2007 Stewart

I’ll be giving a Millennials talk at SUNY Fredonia in just a few hours and I’m pretty excited about it. My colleague and CIL co-founder Chris Hollister will be joining me, and it promises to be a special event.

What makes it special is that this is a conference on multimodal literacies, and that I’ll be addressing the concern of information literacy for the Millennial generation. My audience will be primarily English professors and librarians, and to have those two groups in the room while talking about information literacy can be a little daunting. But it’s also an exciting opportunity to launch a discussion among the parties best able to address information literacy concerns for their school.

I’m posting my slides here to be shared with the group (no handouts today) and this post can serve as a springboard for continuing our discussion. I’ll post more later today when I’m back from the event.

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Updates on various…

November 17th, 2006 Stewart

PubDrug.org is getting underway, and there seems to be some interest in the project, judging from e-mails I’ve received and blog posts I’ve read. I would like to develop an editorial board to begin with, a group of volunteers who would guide PubDrug’s overall mission and coordinate it’s development. This isn’t a small commitment, I know, but if you think you’d be interested in serving in this capacity, please e-mail me. First up on the PubDrug to-do list — design a template for drug monographs. If you have ideas for improving it, feel free to edit the template directly! That’s what a wiki is for, after all.

Communications in Information Literacy has received several query letters describing some remarkable research in information literacy. Chris and I are both very excited about the quality of the queries we’ve received. There’s still room for more, though, so please consider submitting a paper for our Inaugural Issue due out this spring.

Lots of other stuff underway as well, including new workshops, a CE workshop I’m developing, and the book chapter. Onward and upward.

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