Page 92 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

Making a detailed case 91
anyway think that a far more widespread common ownership
already exists. Perhaps you accept the existence of a massive, if
predominantly hidden, web which binds your thought to all the
texts that you have read and connects them to many others. If
so, acknowledging those few, relatively minute, threads of
influence which your memory can consciously retrace may seem
an oddly limited project.
Nevertheless, in other contexts, knowingly to present
someone else’s work as one’s own does strike most people as
obviously unfair. In the academic world, nearly all teachers
disapprove of unacknowledged borrowing and a few go almost
hysterical when they discover it.
For a student, plagiarism is so counter-productive as to be
not just squalid but simply illogical. It cannot assist you in any
of the purposes which have led to your writing the essay. It
actively discourages the exercise of those intellectual muscles by
which you hope to develop the strength and flexibility of your
own mind. It is itself so dishonest that, far from increasing your
or your reader’s chances of approaching nearer to the truth, it
must reduce them.
Most students, of course, quite reasonably, also want to
impress their tutor and gain a good mark. But even these
objects are likely to be defeated by unacknowledged borrowing.
Consider how much better-read most tutors are than most
students. Remember, too, how similar are the skills required by
the tutor as literary critic and the tutor as thief-catcher.
Expertise in analysis of style and evaluation of argument tunes
the ear into those subtle inconsistencies of phrasing or thought
which mark the joins in scissors-and-paste fraud. The likelihood
of plagiarism being found out is extremely high. Its punishment
is almost certain to be severe. No gambler who could add up
would accept such a risk for such paltry gains.
If you are interested enough in improving your own criticism
to have read this far, you are obviously not going to waste your
time in cheating. However, plagiarism is still your problem.
Others do cheat and your tutor will not, at first, know you well
enough to have blind faith in your good sense and honesty.
Your essay therefore must provide detailed reassurance
throughout. Since you are a borrower at risk of being mistaken
for a thief, explain clearly who has lent you what idea and just
how much use you are making of it.