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Plagiarism, Palimpsest and Intertextuality
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Plagiarism, Palimpsest and Intertextuality

Paul A Williams
New Writing, Vol.12(2), pp.169-180
2015
url
https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2015.1036887View
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Abstract

plagiarism palimpsest intertextuality transmigration Cokcraco John Green
Writing, according to Kristeva, is an act of plagiarism. We write palimpsests on top of other writing, acknowledging implicitly that we are derivative, that our work is intertextual, borrowed, sampled, 'internalised', 'bowerbirded' from other works. In my teaching of Creative Writing, I encourage students to intentionally 'borrow' in this way; in my own writing, I blatantly steal. It is what writers do. How different, however, is intertextual borrowing to copying other people's work and passing it off as your own? I will examine recent examples of writers who have been shamed and stripped of their awards because of their intertextual 'borrowings', and compare this to Kristeva's notion of text as a 'mosaic of quotations' as well as Roland Barthes's idea of text as 'a new tissue of past citations', and explore the fine line between plagiarism, palimpsest and intertextuality.

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