Rethinking Plagiarism for Technical Communication

INTRODUCTION Cases of plagiarism among professional writers have gained increasing media attention in recent years. As a result, many students of professional writing fear that they may be “stealing,” or committing intellectual “theft,” whenever they make use of any existing material in their writing. They have been warned against such uses by several sources. Instructors and university administrators tell them that they must follow plagiarism policies or risk earning failing grades or being expelled from the university. In the news they see their peers venture into the professional world and face public criticism and termination of contracts for acts of plagiarism. In addition, attention given to Turnitin.com and other “plagiarism detection technologies” has created a culture of fear among student writers who understand that such technologies may be used for policing their writing practices. (For more on Turntin.com, see http://www.plagiarism.org/.) These stories and others have infiltrated conversations on many college campuses, warning student writers against copying with a seemingly simple message: “don’t steal.” However, as industry professionals in technical communication are well aware, the message is not that simple in our field. The issue of plagiarism is particularly contentious for technical and professional writers, as opposed to academic writers, because of the types of writing activities we regularly engage in. Technical communicators commonly perform a variety of types of composing activities that could be considered plagiarism in the context of the classroom. Such activities include: