NPR's On the Media featured an interview with a college professor who tells students to buy term papers off the internet and try to defend them as their own.
While that may be in interesting exercise in learning one more reason it is wrong to buy papers, that is not his purpose.
He does it, he says, and he may have been joking because the alternative seems unlikely, because there is no more originality in art or music so why should their be in writing?
Ok, so John Cage or Sting or Sir Paul aren't doing anything new, they are just rehashing what has been written before? And there is no difference between what Roseanne Cash did on The List and what she is recording now?
Talk about flawed theories.
I wish I had caught the professor's name, but I was driving through Mahlon Dickinson State Park which means the radio reception was iffy. I would like to read some of the things he wrote (publish or perish, you know) and see if I could find out where he stole it from.
I'm a big fan of academic freedom, but I think the line should be drawn at teaching students to break one of the 10 Commandments. Just as a for instance.
Stealing is stealing.
Plagiarism is plagiarism.
You don't encourage it, certainly not in an academic setting. Not even as a joke.
There is plenty of room for creativity. The last great thing has not been written. Not even close.
