Blog Post 3

Johnson-Eilola and Selber's ideas of assemblage fall directly into what we have been talking about in class discussions of remixes. To me, they are trying to prove the point that students are not in face plagiarizing but drawing ideas of their own from other creative pieces. Once they think about them, consider them in depth, transform them, and recreate the idea in a new way, they have assembled a new piece of writing; Not plagiarized it. Johnson-Eilola and Selber make the point that far too much of a student's performance level is based upon the concept of originality when more often than not teachers fail at being original. Lesson plans, syllabi, and consent forms are directly taken from other professors who have created the exact papers before them and have made them accessible. The authors fight for the emphasis on performance to be the ability to read an an amazingly creative piece and recreate and equally or even better, a more amazing piece. 

I do not hate on either argument of where the line  plagiarism and originality split, but in my eyes it is a very easy line to read. Plagiarism without looking up the real definition can be defined as copying one's work without giving credit where credit is due. Reading a book and copying the pages word for word and attempting to sell it to others without permission or giving the author's name the spotlight is plagiarism. Reading an awesome novel, becoming inspired to write your own perhaps because a character touched your heart and writing a novel with the same type of savvy character is not plagiarism. That is inspiration. 

There was a lot of information to take in and I am not sure if i retained it all, although I tried. So I would not say I was confused by a lot of the article but I would say I was overwhelmed with information on the same topic.