|
|
Soooo... professors are always required to have a plagiarism policy. The thing is: I don't believe in this. If my assignments are unique enough, then they are not readily available on google or easily achievable by someone from a write-a-paper-for-a-fee service who is disconnected from me, the course, and its content ANYWAY.
But real talk here for a minute. You don't want to be a BITER. A biter is someone who copies someone else's words/ style/ vibe and lies about it because a biter is too simple to have that on their own. Know the difference between a BITER and someone who is JACKIN FOR BEATS--- in the way Ice Cube described it years ago: Ice Cube, will take a funky beat and reshape it |
Be clear that Cube didn't JUST jack beats in his body of work. The point is that he could re-mix the Greats who came before him and create a whole new aura of his own with and from them.
Let’s take this website— it is certainly NOT original given the texts, images and sounds that are borrowed from all over the internet. No one is in here acting like we went and made these images ourselves, that the music here is ours, or that the lyrics on this website are written by us! The point is to let these folk shine on their own and get your own shine besides them. This website is still original, so much so that if you see any other professor getting down like this on these college streets, they are BITING ME. Go ‘head and RE-MIX in fabulous ways, yes-yes, but know that straight biting someone else's work and vibe are not cool and will get you in all kinds of trouble way beyond the university's policies.
In this class, a Yoruba proverb will be our guide: “We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.” Standing on the shoulders of your elders, ancestors, and community/communities means that you acknowledge them. When you are inspired by someone’s wisdom and vision, when you are conscious of their imprint, you say THAT... you release that acknowledgement into the universe. There are many kinds of cultural motifs that can help us understand the importance of such acknowledgement: ceremonies that begin by the audiences calling the names of heroes, sheroes, and ancestors to name them and bring them into the room; formal libations AND informal libations (pouring some out for the homies who were taken from us--- for those of you who know the practice.) Please take seriously the philosophy guiding this Yoruba proverb and the practices just described: you always stop, take notice, and make mention of where you come from and who got you there. Let that guide you.
Make the ways of citing and siting your sources of wisdom a deeper practice than just summarizing, paraphrasing, and memorizing the rules of APA or MLA style. This is so much bigger than avoiding what the university punishes as plagiarism. Pay homage to the shoulders you are standing on.
Let’s take this website— it is certainly NOT original given the texts, images and sounds that are borrowed from all over the internet. No one is in here acting like we went and made these images ourselves, that the music here is ours, or that the lyrics on this website are written by us! The point is to let these folk shine on their own and get your own shine besides them. This website is still original, so much so that if you see any other professor getting down like this on these college streets, they are BITING ME. Go ‘head and RE-MIX in fabulous ways, yes-yes, but know that straight biting someone else's work and vibe are not cool and will get you in all kinds of trouble way beyond the university's policies.
In this class, a Yoruba proverb will be our guide: “We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.” Standing on the shoulders of your elders, ancestors, and community/communities means that you acknowledge them. When you are inspired by someone’s wisdom and vision, when you are conscious of their imprint, you say THAT... you release that acknowledgement into the universe. There are many kinds of cultural motifs that can help us understand the importance of such acknowledgement: ceremonies that begin by the audiences calling the names of heroes, sheroes, and ancestors to name them and bring them into the room; formal libations AND informal libations (pouring some out for the homies who were taken from us--- for those of you who know the practice.) Please take seriously the philosophy guiding this Yoruba proverb and the practices just described: you always stop, take notice, and make mention of where you come from and who got you there. Let that guide you.
Make the ways of citing and siting your sources of wisdom a deeper practice than just summarizing, paraphrasing, and memorizing the rules of APA or MLA style. This is so much bigger than avoiding what the university punishes as plagiarism. Pay homage to the shoulders you are standing on.
