9.8–Representing the Conversation

When you write papers about literary texts, you are joining an ongoing conversation of ideas between texts and readers. A particularly interesting aspect of this conversation concerns ethics between writers and readers. These ethics concern the enormous value that literary texts and their conversants bring to society. As a reader engaging in a conversation, you derive a personal benefit from the process of thinking about, understanding, and responding to literary works. When you write about them, your work has a value both as a means of demonstrating your learning and as a contribution to an ongoing conversation. The literary text, scholars and commentators’ articles, books, and web entries, as well as your own paper and writings, all have value as intellectual property.

Intellectual property is a creative work that has certain rights for the creator or right holder associated with it. In the United States, literary works fall under the category of copyright, which comes with a particular set of rights, provided that certain conditions are met. There are limitations on these rights, regarding their duration in time (when an item’s copyright term ends it falls into the public domain), and exceptions for when and how other people can use copyrighted works for purposes such as research, teaching, or news reporting, i.e., fair use.

When you are using the intellectual property of others, it is important to recognize that there are ethical dimensions to that use. We have societal norms concerning how such works can be used given their value, just as there are norms about how someone can use the works that you create. In the case of writing papers about literature, you want to pay particular attention to how you represent the words and ideas of others. You can do this by making sure that you cite your sources when you incorporate someone else’s text or ideas into your paper. It is expected that you will have to quote material either from the literary work you are analyzing and/or from other scholars in the field as a part of joining a conversation. When you do so, you respect their work by including citation markers showing that you are either quoting (copying portions of a text verbatim) or paraphrasing (rephrasing portions of a text to represent the ideas in your own words). Making sure that you cite your sources when you use someone else’s words or ideas in your paper means that you are not plagiarizing a work. Because of the great value of ideas and the expressions of those ideas in university societies, where things like research articles, books, papers, and presentations are key components of academic work, plagiarism is generally considered to be a serious offense. These same rules apply to your own work, which should also be represented ethically by others.

Beyond ensuring that you meet the ethical norms of using other people’s texts, citations help future readers trace the scholarly conversation that you have entered upon writing your own text. Just as you may want to follow up on a source that you see quoted in an article, other people may wish to do the same when they read your work. Providing citations helps anyone interested in the same topic join your conversation.