Intellectual Property Paranoia and the Writing Center
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Date
2003
Authors
Jurecka, Ginger
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The current atmosphere of numerous academic institutions is one of suspicion
regarding intellectual ethical transgressions. Universities that have longstanding
honor systems, like Southwestern University, dismiss this paranoia as
being unrelated to their establishment because the honor code system protects
them. The honor code incites additional thought regarding consultation
methods in writing centers like Southwestern’s Debbie Ellis Writing Center
(DEWC). One must question what Southwestern students are truly affirming
when writing “I have neither given nor received aid on this examination, nor
have I seen anyone else do so” on an assignment they have taken to the
writing center (Southwestern University 58). Are they saying they did not
benefit from their visit to the writing center, or are they merely affirming that
they did not engage in unethical behavior? According to Stephen North, “Nearly
everyone who writes likes–and needs–to talk about his or her writing…. A
writing center is an institutional response to this need” (North 71). In addition
to fulfilling the needs of the university’s writers by creating a place for
discussions about writing, the writing center complicates the supposedly clear
ethical and non-ethical dichotomy of the honor code system by being an
institutionalized exception to that system. As an exception to the honor code
system, the DEWC calls into question the viability of that system and the ideas
of intellectual property that serve as its foundations.