College English - Volume 62, Issue 4, 2000

Considers how plagiarism continues to elude definition because teachers cannot possibly formulate and act on a definition of plagiarism that articulates both its textual and sexual work. Discusses linking sexual property to textual transgression and rejecting metaphors in relationship to rejecting plagiarism. Suggests educators stop using the term plagiarism altogether and replace it with “fraud,” “insufficient citation,” and “excessive repetition.”

Discusses an attempt to work both narratively and critically, recognizing that the narratives of experience first constructed (spoken and written) represent a necessary convergence of history, tradition, politics, and interpretation, which represents sites of contest and conflict. Discusses the willingness to allow expression of cultural attitudes within the classroom while openly acknowledging the simultaneous constraints produced when such attitudes conflict.