Re: Philosophical ques. re: plagiarism

Subject: Re: Philosophical ques. re: plagiarism
From: John Nesbit <janesbit -at- HOTMAIL -dot- COM>
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 04:49:24 PDT

With each new project, I can expect to contribute anywhere
from 10 per cent to 100 per cent of the contents, depending
on my role (editor, writer, layout and graphics, online help,
web pages, etc).

I find it difficult to work on projects if I produce very little "new"
writing. This is usually the case when an SME (subject matter
expert) provides the technical description of the framework,
functionality or applications of a particular product. Sometimes
I will receive very little information from an SME, and have to
turn to books, journals, web pages and newsgroups for the
technical information I need to explain how our products work.


I share the same concerns. My usual assignment is to produce content
writing based on the outline that our technical expert has devised and
from resource material that another person has "researched" and
collected though I am free to consult other material as well and to talk
w/ our technical savvy people whenever I can find them. The time
schedule they have devised makes it difficult to do a lot of outside
research.
The problem I am finding in working this way is that I'm discovering
often that the actual outline structure of the material is lifted from
one source, so I struggle with that even because that itself feels like
plaigerism. I understand why our technical people are doing
it--essentially it's an English as a Second Language situation since
English is not their primary language, and they don't see their outline
and time constraints as a problem.
I work very hard to gather various other sources to gain enough
knowledge to improve the content, use my own perspective, come up with
original metaphors, etc. to make sure I'm not plaigerising, but some
lessons are very difficult to handle.
Of course, when I am dealing with a lesson about some aspect of
computers that I have more background knowledge about, it's MUCH easier
to write original material. Another lesson I wrote about recently that
I was pleased with was one that our technical expert gave me no outline,
and gave me very little material to work with. Actually, I received some
help from people on this list for resources on that one--about sound
cards. Since they had given me little material, they understood why I
couldn't crank out the lesson on their usual schedule and allowed me
more time to create it. I felt much better about this content lesson
than most all the others because I was able to organize it, so I knew
that I wasn't plaigerizing the thought process of someone else.
The other area I feel good about writing is my work on creating the
Teacher Guide since in this area I am relying on coming up with ideas
about how to present the technical material effectively and resource
material. This is easy for me to do since I had done that in the
teaching field for 25 years, so plaigerism is not an issue for that
material.
I really enjoy working with the people at my company. We have some
other technical writers who share the same concerns, but we have not
been able to convince the CEO who oversees the structure of the
operation that the very way the "research" is conducted and the time
schedule constraints is causing us writers to struggle to avoid
plaigerism.

John Nesbit














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