True Story 4.15
University student from Bahrain hates to cite his sources
The setting for this story
At the United Arab Emirates-based American University of Sharjah, the professors are mostly Americans. Omar, a student from Bahrain, wrote the following complaint about an American professor and one of her requirements for students’ academic writing.
A story of misaligned minds21
American professors have no appreciation of good writing! In the literature review for my research paper, my teacher wants me to pick up some information from this paper and some from that paper, then put it all together and come up with a conclusion. All of the papers I draw from must be cited parenthetically within the text – and then included in a bibliography as well.
Why do I need to cite them parenthetically in the text? I have already read them. I understand them. So why do I also need to identify them? Oh, I really hate to read what I write in English!
Omar’s question
Why is it necessary for me to state the exact source of each item of information I make use of?
Critique of story 4.15
Responding to Omar’s question requires us to explore one of the most basic differences between societies guided by individualistic values and those guided by communitarian values.
In a society guided by individualistic values, private ownership is recognized, respected, and desired. Individualists apply the concept of ownership to tangible things and intangible thoughts. Here in the U.S., these values are institutionalized in the form of the U.S. Patent Office, which identifies the original inventors of tangible products, and the Library of Congress, which administers the copyright system for identifying the original authors of intangible ideas that have been written in books, articles, and other documents. Our society also recognizes and protects trademarks as well as design and publicity rights. For instance, Coca-Cola owns the design rights to the iconic Coke bottle. The products, ideas, designs, etc. protected by these rights are referred to as “intellectual property.”
An essential fact about a new machine or publication is which individual thought it up first. Usually, that individual is pleased when others find his or her machine or publication worthy and want to use it – e.g., a company wants to use one’s machine or a scholar wants to borrow one’s thoughts. But the rules are that a new user must publicly acknowledge the originator. This often (but not always) includes the user’s paying the originator for the right to use it. In this way, originators are enabled to profit from their creative ideas, the private ownership norms of our society are preserved, and the public maintains access to the growing supply of creative ideas.
Regarding written materials, those who borrow and use them without acknowledging their originator are termed “plagiarists.” Derived from Greek and Latin words meaning “kidnapper,” plagiarism occurs when a person publicly disseminates someone else’s original idea via speaking or writing as though it had occurred in his or her own mind. In the U.S. and many other, mainly Western, countries, plagiarism can derail one’s career. A president of Harvard University was fired recently because, in part, she was found to have plagiarized the ideas of someone else in something she wrote prior to becoming Harvard’s president.
People raised in a communitarian society, like Omar, often are perplexed or angered by our rule about citing the source of ideas they didn’t think up themselves. This is understandable. Their societies are group-oriented and mutually supportive; the notion that one individual could own something to the exclusion of everyone else is weak or nonexistent. A related explanation is that well-educated people like Omar assume that citing a source, especially when it’s a highly respected and widely recognized authority, is superfluous because any educated person will know perfectly well the origin of that idea.
For thought
In a book or article that observes Western academic norms, the author is expected to use either parenthetical citations within the text – example: (Smith, C., 2013, p.18) – or little numbers linked to endnotes (the method used in this book) to identify – to “cite” – the author from whom they borrowed each fact or interpretation that isn’t the author’s own. Note, however, that the cited author is not necessarily the originator of that idea; that author, in turn, might have cited an even earlier source.
Related stories
Story 4.07 discusses cheating. Story 1.19 looks from a different perspective at the importance of originality for Americans. See also, in Chapter 8, the section entitled “Creativity and Originality.”
Go to Chapter 1 Quick-Links | Return to Chapter 4 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 7 Quick-Links | Go to Chapter 10 Quick-Links
Endnotes:
21 Al-Issa (2005), 159, 167.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.