Cheetas never prosper. ~ Zazu
Got what? Milk? Great Idea!
Plagiarism: use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.
Think again, friend.
A few weeks I wrote a post on how new ideas come to pass and better ideas emerge when someone decides to break a rule, ask the strange question, or defy convention . It was called ‘Rice and Hot Dog Buns’.
I got the idea for writing about “that’s the way its always been” from Roy H Williams in his book, ‘Does Your Ad Dog Bite‘ and started formulating an article in my mind immediately. But soon I had to walk away and do some other things. A few days later I was cooking rice and got the “rice” part of the post. A few weeks went by before I could get anything down on the proverbial paper (my computer) but the idea was bumbling around in my head until I could get back to it.
So I sat and wrote about rice, walked away, a while later started to write about…how come hot dog buns don’t come in the same number as hot dog wieners? I was ready to wax eloquent about the Father of the Bride flipping out in the grocery store over this atrocity on the shelves. What a great idea I’d had!
Yes, it does bite.
I decided to reread the ‘Ad Dog Bite’ entry that inspired the post when lo and behold it was all about the hot dog thing – duh, that’s where the inspiration for the article came from but in the lag time I HADN’T REMEBERED THE HOT DOG PART. I thought that remembering the hot dog bun reference from Father of the Bride was my idea.
Imagine my shock when I saw that this was pointed out plainly in Mr. William’s article. I felt so strange because there was such a blind spot in my mind about it all. So I changed it to Rice and Ham and used an urban legend about why the ends are cut off of hams instead.
Helen Keller was accused of plagiarism concerning one of her earliest works, The Frost King. Written in 1891 she sent it to a friend and in his excitement he arranged to have the story published. It turns out that the enchanted tale closely mirrored another work of fiction: The Frost Fairies by Margaret Canby. Oh, step back Helen Keller! (source)
Did I mention that Helen Keller was 11 years old when she wrote The Frost King?
Helen’s ‘crime’ was more akin to cryptomnesia than plagiarism. Cryptomnesia is an inadvertent plagiarism influenced by memory bias. I might not have believed it was possible if I hadn’t experienced it myself with what I will now refer to as ‘the hot dog bun affair’.
Plagiarism is an obvious taboo but with today’s print, web, radio, tv, billboard, smart phone, and skywriting messages bombarding us constantly an idea can slip into our conscious thought and masquerade as one of our own.
When you get an inspiration for an idea, go ahead and write like a maniac and try to not edit your own work as you go…but then, let others read your work, remember to review your facts and ideas, and cite your sources when necessary.