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The Department of French and Francophone Studies
Graduate Handbook

The Uses of Sources in Scholarly Writing

These pages have been adapted, using a different source text, from The Logic and Rhetoric of Exposition by Harold C. Martin (New York: Rinehart and Co., 1958), pp. 178-182, to which the reader is referred for further examples. There are many degrees of illicit usage ranging from straightforward copying to the appropriation of an apt phrase or two. To help distinguish among them, let us take a source text and then look at four different types of dishonest borrowing from it.

The Source

Physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature, and a student of it says that he is learning physics, not nature. Art, like nature, has to be distinguished from the systematic study of it, which is criticism. It is therefore impossible to "learn literature": one learns about it in a certain way, but what one learns, transitively, is the criticism of literature. Similarly, the difficulty often felt in "teaching literature" arises from the fact that it cannot be done; the criticism of literature is all that can be directly taught. Literature is not a subject of study, but an object of study: the fact that it considers words, as we have seen, makes us confuse it with the talking verbal disciplines. The libraries reflect our confusion by cataloguing criticism as one of the subdivisions of literature. Criticism, rather, is to art what history is to action and philosophy to wisdom: a verbal imitation of a human productive power which in itself does not speak.

Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism
(New York: Atheneum, 1966, pp. 11-12)

1. Word-for-word plagiarizing

In our study of criticism we can find a parallel in science. Physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature... (Here the above text is copied word for word)... a human productive power which in itself does not speak. Thus we also find parallels to criticism in history and philosophy.

In this example, the writer has composed an opening and a closing sentence, but otherwise has left the copied text intact. It should be noted that the added sentences have slightly distorted the meaning of the original by shifting the emphasis from the nature of criticism to a comparison with other disciplines. Such distortions are common in plagiarized work because a writer looking for short-cuts will rarely take time to understand someone else's thought.

2. The Mosaic

There seems to be a general confusion about just what literary criticism is. Libraries reflect our confusion by cataloguing criticism as one of the subdivisions of literature. In the sciences a physicist studies nature, but he learns physics. Likewise we must distinguish literature from the systematic study of it, which is criticism. Literature is not a subject of study, but an object of study. Therefore it is not something we can learn directly; what we learn is the criticism of literature. If everyone could agree on this point the confusion about criticism would disappear.

As one can see, the underlined phrases have been lifted out of the original text and moved into new patterns. The first example might have been legitimized by putting the copied text in quotation marks and identifying it in a footnote, but in this case to put every stolen phrase within quotation marks would produce an almost unreadable, and quite worthless, text. Even the conclusion, which is the writer's own, is hardly profound.

3. The Paraphrase

Physics is the ordered study of nature, and anyone who studies it learns physics, not nature. In the same way literature must be differentiated from the study of literature which is called criticism. We cannot, therefore, "learn literature." We can learn about it, of course, but what we learn directly is criticism. If we have difficulty "teaching literature," it is because it is impossible. What we really teach is criticism. Literature is not a subject of study like physics, but an object of study like nature. The confusion that exists in this area seems to stem from the fact that both literature and criticism are made up of words. Criticism, like history and philosophy, imitates a human ability in words and does not have the power to speak by itself.

Notice how the writer has simply traveled along with the original text, substituting approximately equivalent terms except where understanding fails, as it does in the last sentence. Paraphrasing has its uses; it is valuable for the reader as well. To legitimize the above paragraph, the writer might introduce it with a phrase such as: "To paraphrase Northrop Frye..." or "As Frye notes in his Anatomy of Criticism..." and conclude with a footnote giving the additional information necessary.

4. The "Apt" Term

Literature is not something we learn, but something we study. What we learn is a combination of fact and theory passed through the lens of a particular methodology; in other words, we learn criticism. Because literature is made up of words, we tend to confuse it with the talking verbal disciplines such as criticism. Literature does not speak to us discursively. Instead, it is a human productive power analogous to action in human affairs. Just as one does not learn human action, but history, so one does not learn literature, but criticism.

Here the writer was not able to resist the appropriation of two phrases that seemed particularly "apt" to what he or she was saying: "the talking verbal disciplines" and "human productive power." A proper use of these terms would have required only the addition of an identifying phrase: .we tend to confuse it with what Frye calls "the talking verbal disciplines"... In the remainder of the text above the words are the writer's own, though they were directly influenced by Frye's concept of criticism. An acknowledgement of such influence is clearly in order.

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