Lin, A. M. Y. (2004).

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reflexive account. In B. Norton & K. Toohey, Critical pedagogies and language
learning (pp. 271–290). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Norton, B. (1997). Critical discourse research. In N. Hornberger & D. Corson
(Eds.), The encyclopedia of language and education: Vol. 8, Research methods in
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change. Harlow, England: Longman/Pearson Education.

BONNY NORTON
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, Canada

Plagiarism, Intellectual Property and the Teaching of L2 Writing

Joel Bloch. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters, 2012. Pp. vii + 188.

doi: 10.1002/tesq.60

& Discussions about plagiarism continue to attract considerable atten-

tion, and often controversy, in the media and academia alike. The
latest academic contribution to the debate, Joel Bloch’s Plagiarism, Intel-
lectual Property and the Teaching of L2 Writing, approaches plagiarism by
considering it in relation to two issues: intellectual property on the one
hand, and L2 writing pedagogy on the other. Although the idea that
plagiarism and intellectual property are closely connected is not new
(see, for instance, Buranen and Roy’s edited volume on plagiarism and
intellectual property published in 1999), both areas are undergoing
such dynamic development that a volume aiming to take stock of
recent discussions and to outline a way forward is very much needed.
In the first chapter, Bloch introduces the main issues to be dis-
cussed in the rest of the book, ranging from the lack of consensus
about what constitutes plagiarism to the role of technology and new
forms of literacy in the digital sphere. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss intel-
lectual property, as one of the main arguments Bloch puts forward in
this book is that plagiarism can be understood better if considered in
relation to intellectual property law. Chapter 2 traces the historical ori-
gins of intellectual property laws and the term plagiarism, both of
which emerged in the eighteenth century. One of the central themes
introduced in this chapter and revisited in later chapters is the emer-
gence of metaphors to describe plagiarism, such as theft, stealing, and
piracy, all of which have been in widespread use since the eighteenth
century, shaping our views of textual borrowing. In chapters 2 and 3

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Bloch also discusses more recent developments in intellectual property
law, such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Creative Com-
mons, and points to the emergence of alternative metaphors, such as
the metaphor of fence for intellectual property law or metaphors that
liken the new forms of information flows on the Internet to a bazaar,
where commons share information in a decentralized manner. Bloch
argues that these new metaphors provide an alternative way for con-
ceptualizing textual borrowing and plagiarism. He emphasizes the
need for writing teachers to familiarize themselves with issues sur-
rounding intellectual property laws, since “much of what teachers do
in the writing classroom is affected and, to some extent governed, by
intellectual property law” (p. 60). These two chapters provide a wealth
of information drawing on sources as diverse as legal cases, Chinese
state exams, Thomas Jefferson’s letters, personal anecdotes, and posts
to mailing lists, although the reader may at times wonder about the
relevance of these wide-ranging discussions to the issue of plagiarism.
Chapters 4–6 focus more closely on the issue of plagiarism in educa-
tion. Chapter 4 provides a historical overview of the attitudes towards
plagiarism in the academy, and presents more recent contributions to
the discussion of textual borrowing, such as the notions of intertextu-
ality, patchwriting, and public knowledge. Chapter 5 revisits the theme
of metaphors for plagiarism, this time in relation to the teaching of
writing. Bloch observes that plagiarism detection programmes now
commonly used in universities to check students’ writing rely on tradi-
tional metaphors of plagiarism as stealing, while the more recent con-
ceptualization of plagiarism as patchwriting (e.g. Howard, 1999;
Pecorari, 2008) reflects the view of writing as intertextual in nature.
He then proposes the game metaphor as particularly useful for teach-
ing about plagiarism and academic writing. Like student writing at uni-
versity, games are goal-oriented activities in which players are rewarded
if they follow certain rules, or punished if they violate them; however,
players must be familiar with the rules in order to be able to partici-
pate. In chapter 6 Bloch shows how the game metaphor can be put
into practice to teach about plagiarism, drawing on the example of a
course about intellectual property and plagiarism in his teaching con-
text. He first presents the results of a survey about the attitudes
towards plagiarism and intellectual property held by students, staff,
graduate teaching assistants, and administrators in his university, which
revealed sometimes conflicting views and a general lack of consensus
among the different parties, a finding common in studies of percep-
tions of plagiarism. With these attitudes in mind, the course was
designed, as Bloch further explains, in order to develop students’
awareness of plagiarism and their sense of authorship through expos-
ing them to a variety of stories involving plagiarism in books,

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newspapers, and films, which students discussed in blogs and wrote
about in essays. They were also required to create digital stories using
texts and images, which they then copyrighted themselves. These tasks
make students aware of authorship options as they take responsibility
for their own authorship, which in turn helps make them more
responsible users of other sources. In the brief concluding chapter,
Bloch points to the increasing complexity of issues surrounding plagia-
rism, leading to more complex roles writing teachers will need to play
in helping students understand the issues of textual borrowing. He
concludes by reiterating that “teachers too have a great deal to learn
about both plagiarism and the use of intellectual property” (p. 172).
Overall, the book provides a useful update on recent developments
surrounding the issues of intellectual property and plagiarism. It also
poses many new and pertinent questions about how changes in the
way we use and share information in the digital sphere impact our
notions of textual ownership. The book also contributes to writing
pedagogy by showing how such questions can be approached in practi-
cal terms in the classroom through explicit teaching about plagiarism.
Throughout the book, numerous examples are drawn from diverse
areas, including the media, the courtroom, business, the literary world,
and the classroom, with the already-mentioned variety of academic
and nonacademic sources creating an interesting mix. The range of
topics discussed is impressively broad, although in some places the
links between some of the topics and plagiarism could have been elab-
orated on in more detail. There is also some repetition and overlap
among the chapters that could have been avoided. Despite these draw-
backs, however, the book will be useful to those interested in learning
about the wider context of plagiarism and its relationship to intellec-
tual property, and to writing teachers wishing to tackle plagiarism by
directly teaching about it in their academic writing courses.

REFERENCES

Buranen, L., & Roy, A. (Eds.). (1999). Perspectives on plagiarism and intellectual prop-
erty in a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Howard, R. M. (1999). Standing in the shadow of giants: Plagiarists, authors, collabora-
tors. Stamford, CT: Ablex.
Pecorari, D. (2008). Academic writing and plagiarism: A linguistic analysis. London,
England: Continuum.

BOJANA PETRIĆ
University of Essex
Colchester, United Kingdom

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