Rethinking Plagiarism for Technical Communication

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works that is the focus of much technical communication writing instruction. The last .... Technical communication: A practical approach, Pfeiffer. (2005) writes:.
APPLIED THEORY

SUMMARY

Proposes that technical and professional communication instructors reconsider their treatment of plagiarism ! Examines approaches to teaching about plagiarism and the need for rethinking plagiarism in light of contemporary workplace practice !

Rethinking Plagiarism for Technical Communication JESSICA REYMAN

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INTRODUCTION

ases of plagiarism among professional writers have gained increasing media attention in recent years. As a result, many students of professional writing fear that they may be “stealing,” or committing intellectual “theft,” whenever they make use of any existing material in their writing. They have been warned against such uses by several sources. Instructors and university administrators tell them that they must follow plagiarism policies or risk earning failing grades or being expelled from the university. In the news they see their peers venture into the professional world and face public criticism and termination of contracts for acts of plagiarism. In addition, attention given to Turnitin.com and other “plagiarism detection technologies” has created a culture of fear among student writers who understand that such technologies may be used for policing their writing practices. (For more on Turntin.com, see http://www.plagiarism.org/.) These stories and others have infiltrated conversations on many college campuses, warning student writers against copying with a seemingly simple message: “don’t steal.” However, as industry professionals in technical communication are well aware, the message is not that simple in our field. The issue of plagiarism is particularly contentious for technical and professional writers, as opposed to academic writers, because of the types of writing activities we regularly engage in. Technical communicators commonly perform a variety of types of composing activities that could be considered plagiarism in the context of the classroom. Such activities include: ! Using boilerplate materials and templates ! Relying on existing designs and layouts in the creation of texts ! Collaboratively creating written works ! Ghostwriting texts for popular media consumption ! Assigning the status of “honorary authorship” in

published scientific research to lab supervisors or advisors who have contributed little to the writing process ! Cutting, pasting, and re-purposing existing content, including collating information from technical documents and product specifications ! Single sourcing These common workplace writing practices do not follow the current model for single-authored, original works that is the focus of much technical communication writing instruction. The last item in the list above, single sourcing, is one type of workplace activity that reflects revised notions of authorship and textual ownership in the digital age. Single sourcing and its relationship to authorship and textual ownership is discussed in recent articles in Technical communication. As Rockley (2001) points out in “The impact of single sourcing and technology,” the common professional writing practice of single sourcing emphasizes a “team approach” in document development that requires a paradigm shift necessary for the activity. The team approach, Rockley explains, “does not mean that the writers are no longer responsible for ownership of their information or that they will lose control over the structure of the final output,” but rather that the roles of writers will change as they work in teams to produce core content or information specific to a particular user or product (192). Rockley also argues that “technical communicators need to understand how information can be used in multiple ways as they write to ensure that their content is reusable” (191). As I will demonstrate below, while the concept of “reusable” text has become commonplace for technical communicators in industry settings, it has yet to Manuscript received 17 February 2007; revised 5 July 2007; accepted 9 July 2007. Volume 55, Number 1, February 2008 • TechnicalCOMMUNICATION

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be reconciled fully with current approaches to plagiarism in academic contexts. Eble (2003), in “The effects of single sourcing on the teaching of technical communication,” addresses single sourcing and the teaching of technical communication explicitly: The theoretical and pedagogical implications of single sourcing for educating technical communicators call into question the notion of the writing/communication/ design process, which begins with discovery of information or content, and concludes with delivery of information or content as product. In contrast, the process of single sourcing emphasizes content and information as separate from the form or design of the content. As a result, teaching the process of single sourcing to students requires that I redefine the ‘writing’ process to include separation of content from product. (345)

Single sourcing, then, complicates the writing process, and subsequently the role of the writer as author, in new and challenging ways. As single sourcing relies on a more nuanced notion of audience, content, and form, it also necessarily relies on a complex understanding of authorship, ownership, and textual production and use. Given Rockley’s emphasis on the team model of single-source writing and Eble’s emphasis on a shifting model of the writing process required for creating content for singlesource projects, it becomes clear that newer, emerging models for writing in the workplace necessitate discussion of textual production, reproduction, and re-use—and consequently plagiarism—in new ways. The activity of single sourcing, in addition to various other methods of composing such as those listed above, adds new layers to traditional notions of authorship and thus should affect how we approach plagiarism in the classroom. Plagiarism relies on the concepts of authorship and ownership of texts, subjects of theoretical and practical interest to technical communicators. Our field has wrestled with the concept of the “author” and its implications for establishing our status as professionals in industry. In their landmark essay “The technical communicator as author: Meaning, power, authority,” Slack, Miller, and Doak (1993) recognize that technical communicators are more than neutral conduits, invisibly transmitting necessary data from originator to receiver. The authors introduce an alternative position, one in which the technical communicator is a contributor to meaning-making, enabling the technical communicator to assume the status of an author. While such status empowers their discourse as “authorial,” it also brings with it the responsibility of ownership and subsequent dangers of accusations of plagiarism: are the writings of technical communicators original or are they stolen goods? The concept of authorship and textual ownership be62

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comes even more complex when considered across cultures. As technical communicators find themselves working across international contexts, they recognize that understandings of what constitutes originality and ownership of texts is culturally dependent. It is worth noting that the modern Western author construct arose at a specific time and place, 18th-century Europe, in connection with a particular information technology, print (Woodmansee 1998). While treatment of international authorship is beyond the scope of this article, technical communicators can benefit from understanding that this model for authorship remains the dominant paradigm in our global age. Logie (2005) notes in “Cut and paste: Remixing composition pedagogy for online workspaces” the differences between workplace practices and academic practices in the field of technical communication, asserting that “the policies addressing the use and circulation of texts by students will serve to intimidate and, ultimately, stifle” those practices that rely on copying, reusing, and “remixing” texts (303). One major obstacle to teaching technical communication in a way that reflects the complexity of the concept of authorship as it is understood in the workplace is the notion of plagiarism adopted on most college campuses. Even if we ask students to engage in composing practices that require collaboration, interaction, reusing, and repurposing text, we need to remember that these practices may break the “rules” that students have learned about plagiarism. Plagiarism policies on our campuses and practices in our classrooms often serve to identify copying and reusing of text a violation of academic code. Students entering the workplace may find it difficult to distinguish between “allowable copying” versus plagiarism, which they know to be disallowed. We need to help students to distinguish between intellectual “theft” and common and ethical composing practices in the workplace by talking more explicitly about the gray areas that exist between original composition, plagiarism, copying, and reusing text in professional contexts.

CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO PLAGIARISM IN TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION INSTRUCTION

Examining the coverage of plagiarism in recent introductory technical communication textbooks is a starting point for better understanding how treatment of the concept is often in conflict with professional writing practices that encourage technical writers to recycle and re-use materials in their writing. While such examples do not explain fully the range of classroom activities used for teaching concepts of plagiarism, they do reveal some common assumptions adopted among respected academics in the field. Looking to examples of approaches to plagiarism in recent textbooks reveals several problematic assumptions. In this section, I’ll address two: first, that plagiarism is equated with

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intellectual “theft” and second, that the use of Internet technologies for writing leads to plagiarism. Before turning to those examples, I should point out that these texts were not selected because they are uniquely uninformed on issues of authorship, ownership, and plagiarism; rather, to the contrary, some of these textbooks are among the most popular and widely used in the field. They have been selected as representative examples because they appear to be typical. Many, many introductory technical communication texts treat plagiarism according to these same assumptions. Is all copying theft?

Of course, cheating and dishonesty are serious infractions in both academic and workplace settings. When students copy a written work and turn it in with the intention of presenting the work as an assignment they have written alone, the students have behaved unethically. However, this is not the type of plagiarism I am discussing here. Rather, I am attempting to bring to light the gray areas that exist between what is considered “plagiarism” and the range of composing activities that require the copying and re-use of existing materials in the workplace. With this understanding in mind, it becomes problematic for technical communication instruction to equate all acts of copying with intellectual “theft.” Often in introductory technical communication textbooks, the concept of copying is equated with intellectual “theft,” which is contrasted with the notion of “originality” of words and ideas. For instance, as advised in the fifth edition of Technical writing: Process and product by Gerson and Gerson (2006), “Do not plagiarize. Plagiarism is the appropriation (theft!) of some other person’s words and ideas without giving proper credit” (457). Likewise, in a section titled “Avoiding Plagiarism” in the sixth edition of Technical communication: A practical approach, Pfeiffer (2005) writes:

tively writing process of the workplace— create a misleading dichotomy between writing and “theft” that does not represent workplace writing practice. What makes these examples even more problematic is that an autonomous, proprietary model for textual ownership conflicts with what writing researchers understand about composing processes. As Howard (1999) points out in Standing in the shadows of giants: Plagiarists, authors, collaborators, student writers move toward membership of a discourse community by using other writers’ texts and drawing from multiple voices, demonstrating the type of intertextuality that rhetorical theorist Bakhtin (1986) recognizes as inherent to language. If we agree with the notion that all writing is inherently collaborative, intertextual, and social even from the point of invention (invoking LeFevre 1987), then we can see that a dichotomy between “borrowed knowledge” and original ideas, and between “theft” and “originality,” in approaches to plagiarism in the classroom can be misleading about actual composing processes, especially those that occur in professional writing contexts. Distinctions between the ethical implications of copying, borrowing, reusing, and repurposing text and plagiarism in various contexts should be made. Not all copying is “theft”; that is, not all copying of materials is a dishonest or unethical act. Some copying and re-use, instead, reflect common composing processes that carry context-specific values, such as that which occurs in the workplace. Plagiarism and the Internet

The second assumption that I’d like to address that appears often in technical communication textbooks is the suggestion that using the Internet for writing has a causal relationship to plagiarism. An example that demonstrates this assumption appears in Johnson-Sheehan’s Technical communication today (2005):

One basic rule underlies the mechanical steps described in the rest of this chapter: With the exception of “common knowledge,” you should cite sources for ALL borrowed information used in your final document. This includes quotations, paraphrases, and summaries. (544 –545)

Unfortunately, cases of plagiarism are on the rise. One of the downsides of online texts, such as websites, is the ease of plagiarism. Some students have learned techniques of “patchwriting,” in which they cut and paste text from the Internet and then revise it into a document. This kind of writing is highly vulnerable to charges of plagiarism, so it should be avoided. (128)

Here, Pfeiffer asserts a distinction between “borrowed information” and information that has been originally conceived, presumably while writing in a solitary manner. Another distinction is between “common knowledge,” which includes those ideas that one cannot “own” because they are publicly acknowledged and accepted as true, and original ideas. These distinctions— between original ideas, owned knowledge, and solitary composing practices and the borrowed ideas, common knowledge, and collabora-

Here, Johnson-Sheehan invokes the term “patchwriting” from Howard (1999) discussed above. In the case of this textbook example, however, the Internet is credited with facilitating “patchwriting,” which to Johnson-Sheehan is an undesirable outcome, as it allows cutting and pasting of electronic text. Further, “patchwriting” here is as aligned with an ethical offense (cheating), rather than a natural mode of composing. Another example of the assumption that the Internet facilitates plagiarism can be found in Munger’s Instructors’ Volume 55, Number 1, February 2008 • TechnicalCOMMUNICATION

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resource manual for the most recent edition of the popular textbook Technical communication by Markel (2007). The instructors’ manual includes a section titled “Addressing Plagiarism in the Tech-Comm Course.” Munger writes: In recent years, the anonymity and ease of access provided by the Internet has made plagiarism very tempting to some students. Students can insert passages of information found on various websites and pass them off as their own work. . . . Because of the nature of tech-comm assignments, some students will be tempted to cut and paste graphics, icons, logos, data sets, and source code (for example, HTML, XHTML, and JavaScript) without acknowledging the original creators. (5)

In these examples, I see recognized the common activities of technical communicators— copying and pasting texts from existing documents, finding graphics from other sources, relying on existing source code. Each of these activities is facilitated by digital communication technologies, such as the Internet, which aid technical and professional writers in efficiently completing their workplace activities. However, these same technologies are presented in these examples as inherently dangerous, as causing a “rise” in cases of plagiarism or “making plagiarism tempting.” Technical communication instructors should be particularly careful about assuming a defensive stance against the use of technology for writing. Instead of suggesting a causal relationship between technology use and plagiarism policies, these textbooks might emphasize that technologies are also facilitators, through their copy, paste, and distribution functionalities, of the very strategies fundamental to contemporary workplace writing practices. The problem with contemporary approaches to plagiarism

The two misconceptions about plagiarism presented here are only two among many. Broadly speaking, approaches in contemporary technical communication textbooks appear to have a common goal of exposing plagiarists, with the ultimate intention of denouncing and punishing them. Students who commit ethical infractions by cheating certainly deserve punishment within the academic setting, as do professional writers who likewise intend to deceive through copying. I do not mean to suggest that misconceptions of the concept of plagiarism necessarily lead to false accusations of cheating in academic contexts or in the workplace. Rather, I contend that more nuanced understandings of textual ownership and authorship will help students, particularly advanced technical communication students, to make more seamless transitions into the workplace setting. Unfortunately, contemporary approaches to plagiarism in many introductory technical communication textbooks 64

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do not offer effective strategies for addressing the range of activities that technical and professional writers engage in that might be referred to as “allowable plagiarism.” For many common activities, a student writer may believe they are guilty of plagiarism at the academic level while at the same time performing the tasks of an effective technical communicator.

PROPOSED APPROACHES TO PLAGIARISM FOR TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

As I have discussed above, there are problematic assumptions inherent in the ways we discuss plagiarism in our textbooks, and as a result, likely a problem with how we discuss plagiarism in our classes. The production of technical documents often requires updating previously written information, rewriting information to suit different audiences, collating information from technical documents and product specifications, copying, pasting, and using templates. A division between workplace practices and academic expectations distances our classrooms from the workplace and presents students with an unclear picture of what is allowable and in what contexts it is allowable. Below I propose two preliminary approaches academics and industry professionals might adopt as they begin to rethink the concept of plagiarism to address such conflicts: revisions to classroom instruction and textbooks to reflect a more nuanced view of textual ownership, and policy additions or revisions. Each requires increased academicindustry dialog on the issue of plagiarism. Teaching about plagiarism

Technical communication instruction offers opportunities to develop a more nuanced understanding of allowable copying and re-use, as opposed to a focus on policing all types of copying as plagiarism. Classroom activities and the technical communication textbooks can be revised to acknowledge and address the dissonance between classroom and workplace practices. I suggest that technical communication instructors rethink the teaching of plagiarism, as it occurs both in the classroom and in textbooks, by 1) incorporating discussion of legal definitions of authorship and 2) using analyses of workplace scenarios as a pedagogical tool. It should be noted that the approaches discussed below are presented only as preliminary steps toward rethinking plagiarism in technical communication instruction. While more in-depth attention to and study of plagiarism is important for the introductory technical communication class and, I would argue, essential for advanced courses that seek to prepare students to enter the workplace, much more research is needed, among students and instructors alike, to uncover the problems faced when academic understandings of plagiarism are applied to real-life workplace activities.

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Legal definitions of authorship One method for revising classroom practices and textbook coverage of plagiarism is to more openly acknowledge the varied models of authorship and textual ownership that apply to workplace writing practices, including legal definitions. Understanding how the “legal author” differs from the original, solitary, individualized author construct of the academy can help students to understand that what constitutes plagiarism may depend on context. What is defined as plagiarism in the academic writing classroom may not apply in the corporate sector. The concept of “work-for-hire” is an excellent starting point for illuminating these differences. The “work-fore hire” clause in U.S. copyright law identifies the legal author of a work as the employer, not the writer, for: (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 201, U.S. Copyright Law)

This definition reveals that many, if not most, acts of writing in the workplace may not belong to them as authors. This shift of authorship from the individual to the organization no doubt supports acts of copying and re-use common in those settings, and, of course, further complicates notions of plagiarism in the workplace. (For more on the work-for-hire clause, for both academic and nonacademic settings, see Herrington 1999a and Herrington 1999b. And of course, the copyright laws of countries other than the U.S. should be consulted where appropriate.) When considering the legal definitions of authorship, it is important to discuss with students the affordances of copyright law for some types of copying and re-use. While legal authors are given some exclusive rights to their works, others may still make use of (that is, copy) these works for certain circumstances under the fair use clause. The fair-use doctrine of U.S. copyright law, for example, says, The fair use of a copyrighted work . . . for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107, U.S. Copyright Law)

When courts make decisions regarding whether a particu-

lar instance of copying and re-using works is lawful or not, they rely on an analysis of these four factors 1. The purpose and character of the use 2. The nature of the copyrighted work 3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used 4. The effect on the potential market for the work This four-factor fair use analysis, however, is often only narrowly interpreted in academic settings. One example is the adoption of the “Agreement on guidelines for classroom copying in not-for-profit educational institutions with respect to books and periodicals” (1976), originated by the Ad Hoc Committee of Educational Institutions and Organizations on Copyright Law Revision, the Authors League of America, and the Association of American Publishers. The agreement suggests limitations such as allowing only 10% of a prose work to be reproduced. These guidelines, intended to simplify decisions by academics about whether or not a particular use might be considered lawful by the courts, express only minimum standards for fair use. In other words, there may be instances where an act of copying that does not fall within the guidelines may nonetheless be permitted under fair use. Therefore, these four factors are relevant ones for student writers to learn and to consider when deciding whether or not to make use of another’s copyrighted works in the workplace setting. (It should be noted, however, that courts have the final say as to whether a use is protected by the fair-use doctrine.) While some of the textbooks mentioned above do include discussion of copyright law, including the fair-use provisions (Johnson-Sheehan 2005; Markel 2007), such discussions are presented separately from discussions of plagiarism. Discussing such legal affordances, in the context of discussions about plagiarism, could help students to recognize the ways in which the legality of copying is context-specific, dependent on the terms of a given circumstance of copying and re-use. (For more information on legal rights to copying and reusing works, see Herrington 2001; Helyar and Doudinkoff 2003.) Scenarios Introducing scenarios, both in the classroom and in textbooks, that ask students to wrestle with understandings of the legal and ethical implications of copying and re-use allows for exploration of plagiarism as a context-specific concept. Scenarios addressing such concerns might include nontraditional acts of composition, such as ghostwriting, work-for-hire, collaboration, and using boilerplates, that challenge the single-author model. They might also examine practices of copying and reusing existing materials, such as single-sourcing, that make more complex the notion that all copying is “stealing.” Sample scenarios might be: Volume 55, Number 1, February 2008 • TechnicalCOMMUNICATION

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1. A technical writer has been hired on a limitedterm contract to create, with the help of another writer, the user and administrator guides for a software tool. Who is the “author” of the guides? 2. A technical writer is helping to design a taskoriented help system. She has been asked by the company’s Research and Development Division to model the system based on other similar systems found on the Internet. Can this writer re-use an existing approach to help design as a basis for writing the help system? Analyzing scenarios like these requires that students appreciate the different perceptions of authorship as they are understood in varied contexts. There are no simple right and wrong answers to the questions posed in these scenarios, but they should spark fruitful discussion of the various contextual factors that must be taken into account when determining authorship and textual ownership. This approach emphasizes the dynamic nature of definitions of plagiarism and the ways in which the black-and-white approaches to plagiarism may not accurately reflect the range of composing activities they have or will encounter. In addition, practitioners could work with instructors to provide more examples of workplace activities that contradict academic understandings of plagiarism. Revising plagiarism policies

In support of these classroom activities and textbook revisions, academic units that offer technical communication classes should consider reviewing existing plagiarism policies or drafting new policies that explicitly address the conflicts between academic and workplace contexts. While individual educators may choose to discuss plagiarism in ways that situate manipulation of texts (broadly construed) in academic and workplace environments, these activities take place (or do not) in individual classrooms led by instructors with distinct pedagogical styles and goals. Although I do not argue for placing limits on an instructor’s ability to manage her or his class, adopting a unique statement on plagiarism for technical communication courses is a starting point for emphasizing the importance of such distinctions, and for encouraging more instructors to engage classes in related discussions. While this type of policy change may not be feasible on a departmental level, especially for technical communication programs that are housed within English departments, policies might be incorporated into the syllabi for technical communication classes in particular. These policies might note the continuum of differences between plagiarism, copyright infringement, and rewriting or repurposing workplace materials, and as such, would challenge the misconceptions noted above about plagiarism. It is important to hold students accountable for unethical and 66

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dishonest actions in the classroom, but also to allow room within policies for the gray areas that exist between copying and theft. Therefore, I suggest the development of more expanded policies at the program level when possible, or at least at the syllabus level for technical communication classes, that would clarify the definition of plagiarism rather than labeling all acts of copying as potential “cheating” or “stealing.” Such policies would provide a strong foundation of discussions of textual usage and better connect our classroom activities to workplace activities our students will engage in as they transition from the classroom to industry.

CONCLUSION

Instructors or practitioners of technical communication who wish to research plagiarism and technical communication, whether for pedagogical, scholarly, or practical purposes, will currently find it quite difficult. They will find rich scholarly literature and engaged academic debate in the related fields of rhetoric and composition, computers and composition, writing center studies and writing program administration, but will find a dearth of materials that specifically address programmatic or pedagogical concerns within the scholarship of our own field. As a part of a commitment to a more nuanced and workplace-oriented approach to plagiarism, we should begin to research and publish on these important issues. As a basis for this research, we would do well to initiate dialog among academics and industry professionals that seeks to increase awareness of the range of activities based on copying, reusing, and repurposing written materials that are acceptable and fruitful within particular contexts according to the norms of particular professional settings. In many professional writing settings, the use of boilerplates and templates for Web pages and PowerPoint presentations, ghostwriting, and honorary authorship in scientific research are just a few examples of how certain types of copying and re-use are appropriate within a given setting. We need to uncover through this dialog how the practices that govern what can be copied, by whom, and with what attribution will vary depending on context. It is only by increasing dialog among instructors and industry professionals who rely on such composing models that we can better understand the need to move beyond the seemingly universal rule of “do not steal” to more context-contingent understandings of the concept of plagiarism. TC REFERENCES Ad Hoc Committee of Educational Institutions and Organizations on Copyright Law Revision, Authors League of America, and Association of American Publishers (1976). Agreement on guidelines for classroom copying in not-forprofit educational institutions with respect to books and

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periodicals. H.R. Rep. No. 94 –1476. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf. Bakhtin, M. M. 1986. The problem of speech genres. Speech genres and other late essays, trans. V. W. McGee and ed. C. E. and M. Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 60 –102. Copyright Law of the United States of America. Title 17, Chapter 1. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html. Eble, M. F. 2003. The effects of single sourcing on the teaching of technical communication. Technical communication 50: 344 – 49. Gerson, S., and S. Gerson. 2006. Technical writing: Process and product. 5th ed. Mahwah, NJ: Prentice Hall. Helyar, P., and M. Doudinkoff. 2003. Walking the labyrinth of multimedia law. Technical communication 50: 662– 671. Herrington, T. 1999a. Who owns my work? The state of work-for-hire for academics in technical communication. Journal of business and technical communication 13:125– 153. ———. 1999b. Work-for-hire for non-academic technical communicators. Journal of business and technical communication 13:401– 426. ———. 2004. A legal primer for the digital age. New York, NY: Pearson/Longman. Howard, R. M. 1999. Standing in the shadows of giants: Plagiarists, authors, collaborators. Stamford, CT: Ablex. Johnson-Sheehan, R. 2005. Technical communication today. New York, NY: Pearson/Longman.

LeFevre, K. B. 1987. Invention as a social act. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Logie, J. 2005. Cut and paste: Remixing composition pedagogy for online workspaces. In Internet-based workplace communications: Industry and academic applications, ed. K. St.Amant and P. Zemliansky. Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing, 299 –316. Munger, R. 2007. Instructor’s resource manual. Supplement for Technical Communication by M. Markel (2007). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Pfeiffer, W. S. 2005. Technical writing: A practical approach. 6th ed. Mahwah, NJ: Prentice Hall. Rockley, A. 2001. The impact of single sourcing and technology. Technical communication 48:189 –193. Slack, J. D., D. J. Miller, and J. Doak. 1993. The technical communicator as author: Meaning, power, authority. Journal of business and technical communication 7:12–36. Woodmansee, M. 1998. The genius and the copyright: Economic and legal conditions of the emergence of the “author.” Eighteenth-century studies 17:425– 448. JESSICA REYMAN earned her PhD in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication at the University of Minnesota in 2006. She is an assistant professor of rhetoric and professional writing and director of the Institute for Professional Development at Northern Illinois University. Her research and teaching interests include technical and professional communication, digital rhetoric, and authorship and copyright law. She is currently the advisor of Northern Illinois University’s student chapter of STC and has served as assistant chair of the Intellectual Property Caucus for the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Contact: [email protected].

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