When I was in school, I learned to cite the sources that I used in essays and research papers. I now follow this practice on my Web site as well. I learned that not citing the source of my ideas or using the words of others as if they were my own has a special name: plagiarism. It's a form of cheating. At least, that's what I was taught. Apparently, the lesson hasn't been learned by the local superintendent or school district.
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The DesSoto County School District's Web site has a button to click, called Be There. The click takes readers to the school district's page that describes nice things that happen when parents connect with their children. The "be there" theme is in red letters, but there's no indication that's a citation or reference -- just emphasis. Indeed, none of the red letters are clickable links. They should be -- because "Be There" is a trademarked, copyrighted, properietary program that promotes its mission at http://www.bethere.org/. In short, the school district , in the form of Adrian Cline, Superintendent whose name is the "signature" on the page in question, has plagiarized. He has taken "Be There" words and reproduced them as if it were the district's, or the superintendent's, own work.
The plagiarism isn't just the one page. It goes deeper. Click on a parent's tip link that appears on the District's Be There page, and readers get a bland looking PDF file of Parent Tips, typed into a plain white page. But if visitors were to visit the original Be There Web site, they'd find a remarkably similar document page -- word for word -- only prettier.
So, what's an old dog to think? Has the school district plagiarized? Comments welcome.
In your July 22, 2009 blog you stated that Mr. Cline committed plagiarism with his unacknowledged or uncredited use of the trademarked, copyrighted logo "be there". In your lucid explanation you gave the reader the feeling that you are surprised. Although the school system's emperor was a former English teacher (which would normally lead one to believe that he is cognizant of the concept of plagiarism), this incident is not his first offense, as it were. He seems to be a chronic offender in this regard. He has been caught before by a college English instructor breaking this academic / journalistic law. Although this literary larceny is of no civil penalty consequence (unless pressed), exposure of it and especially its chronicity will certainly be a death sentence for any future academic aspirations (what a nightmare this would be). And with this exposure, the emperor's terrible temper will surface: red face, eyes bulging and snorting (as I read recently about him) his vitriol. I can hear it now :
ReplyDelete"Your accusations are false"
"How dare you criticize me"
"These are personal acusations"
"Your 'something' precedes you"
What other behavior would you expect from such a grasping parvenu? His plagiaristic tendencies represent his feeble aspirations of writing and underscores his philistinism.
Mickey the Dunce
Addendum to Comments: Credit omission --
ReplyDelete"feeble aspirations" and "philistinism" -- are both used by Michael Knox Beran to describe Brooke Astor in his brief commentary, "The Aristocracy and Its Discontents."
By the way, perhaps the head of information technology is an accomplice in this theft. I can envision this scenario: The emperor ordered his information technology minion to adapt (steal) the "be there" theme to our school district which he then signed, thereby committing plagiarism.
Don't you think that one so competent and qualified as our information technology director would be aware of the boundaries regarding the use of proprietary programs? Perhaps this individual has never watched a movie -- they all begin with warnings about piracy. Hopefully, behind the scenes of course, they will blame one another. "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Fall of Rome" are good reading!