tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post2776151791834013052..comments2023-10-30T12:26:15.822+01:00Comments on Research as a Second Language: Susan Blum on Authenticity and PerformanceThomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-12800287231265160352015-02-07T08:48:27.781+01:002015-02-07T08:48:27.781+01:00That's a good point. Blum actually does sugges...That's a good point. Blum actually does suggest that its a generational thing, that the "academic" culture was shaped by Salinger's contempt for phoniness and Kerouac's quest for spontaneity.<br /><br />But this is also way too recent to my mind. The "authority" of scholarship isn't really about authenticity in that deep, personal sense. It's about a sense of tradition and one's own originality within it. (I'll have a post about that next week.)Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-56324708487531291772015-02-07T00:03:43.610+01:002015-02-07T00:03:43.610+01:00Back in my day the youth wanted to be authentic an...Back in my day the youth wanted to be authentic and the old people, not so much. Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09371893596402673898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-5361660631370466432015-02-04T15:43:49.068+01:002015-02-04T15:43:49.068+01:00Thanks for the encouragement, Randy. It's good...Thanks for the encouragement, Randy. It's good to know that, on at least some campuses, I'm critiquing a still inchoate, emergent culture, not necessarily a dominant one.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04858865501469168339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10721624.post-67291205750838533092015-02-04T15:29:16.355+01:002015-02-04T15:29:16.355+01:00I find myself still standing with those who believ...I find myself still standing with those who believe patchwriting is plagiarism, despite the adjurations of Blum and Howard. In prior commentary, I expressed the idea that persons like them have a new role on campus: keeping tuition-paying international students enrolled, rather than in improving students’ communication. And the argument about cultural differences between antediluvians and the current generation of university students smacks of a convenient, self-serving excuse to abdicate responsibility for educating the next generation of scholar-writers.<br /><br />For my part, I am required each semester to include university-approved language in my syllabus about the definitions of academic dishonesty and plagiarism and the consequences of failing to adhere to university policies about those academic faults. I am also eligible for assistance in preparing and delivering “writing-intensive” courses, which have explicit goals in getting students past the barriers that Blum and Howard find insurmountable. Every undergraduate student is required to take at least two such courses – in their chosen field – beyond introductory rhetoric and composition. I interpret these social facts at my university to mean that patchwriting is neither a means nor an end.<br /><br />Keep fighting the good fight, Thomas!<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com