Stories of Plagiarism, Theories of Writing: How Public Access of Plagiarism Reveal Circulating Theories of Writing
Rhetoric and Writing Studies have long attempted to bend plagiarism complaints toward theories of writing and learning. Media coverage and institutional discourse, on the other hand, continue framing plagiarism as an isolated, individual problem (Adler-Kassner, Anson, & Howard, 2008). And so we find plagiarism exhaustively covered and still exhausting. Given decades of stalemate, one could be forgiven for thinking plagiarism is best left an agree-to-disagree issue, best handled by in-house amelioration. Yet, one facet of plagiarism appears intriguing and overlooked: the arguments that surround public figures charged with plagiarism. Such debates bring to light the often invisible commonplaces about writing.
