The Brown Daily Herald T uesday, D ecember 4, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 120
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
The Times’ Ethicist picks apart plagiarism By Rachel Arndt Senior Staff Writer
For nine years as the Ethicist at the New York Times Magazine, Randy Cohen has been resolute in his tough arguments about topics from Adderall use in college to the ethics of being given the wrong change. On Monday evening he pointedly discussed another controversial subject — plagiarism — in his lecture, “Plagiarism: A kind of defense.” In the lecture presented by the Graduate School, Cohen spoke to a half-full Salomon 101 and defended plagiarism in various forms of writing such as novels and some television writing. “I’m all for plagiarism in its place,” he said, but he noted that journalism is not the place for lifting words from others — “every quote is meant to be sourced, and every source is meant to be cited.” Cohen began the lecture by describing Ian McEwan’s alleged plagiarism his 2001 novel, “Atonement.” The British author was accused of taking full sentences from a 1977 book by Lucilla Andrews called “No
Time for Romance.” Cohen wondered whether McEwan’s plagiarism could be considered “a legitimate literary technique.” “Every idea has many ... sources,” Cohen said. “Why isn’t every novelist covered in shame for not citing the editor?” he asked. In his defense of plagiarism in novels, Cohen looked to his own work for “Late Night with David Letterman.” During his time writing for the program, Cohen sometimes found the show’s work later was plagiarized by other sources, but he said it gave him “a total sense of superiority. … They stole because they had to.” “Owning an idea is a very slippery concept,” he said. Nevertheless, “getting credit meant something emotionally,” he said, even when credit was simply being listed with other writers in the closing credits of the show. Cohen suggested that plagiarism could sometimes be taken as a form of flattery. Still, he said, the gravity of plagiarism is clear. He spent the rest of his talk outlining the reasons he
Standardized tests coming to college? By Evan Boggs Staff Writer
Chris Bennett / Herald
Randy Cohen, the New York Times Magazine’s “Ethicist,” told students last night that using Adderall as a study drug may be unhealthy and illegal but is not unethical.
thinks people care so deeply about plagiarism in the first place. People think it is “profoundly moral to give credit where it’s due to the creator of a work,” Cohen said. To make his point, he referred to
the Renaissance, when the primary painter had other artists help paint specific sections. Nowadays, however, “uncredited writing is becomcontinued on page 9
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More students use marijuana than tobacco, poll finds ������� ��������� ������� ����
undergraduates completed the poll, which was administered as a written questionnaire to students in the University Post Office at Faunce House and in the Sciences Library.
continued on page 4
l i k e a ha w k
T-shirts and hooded shirts custom-designed by two Rhode Island School of Design students may soon add a unique flare to College Hill wardrobes. In the meantime, look for RISD sophomores John Verdery and Zio Ziegler wearing their art on their sleeves. The students, who both have experience in apparel design, began collaborating this semester on a new clothing line called Thunder Over Thunder. In addition to planning marketing campaigns at Brown, RISD and other universities, Verdery and Ziegler have shown samples to high-end boutiques in New York and Los Angeles. Their work combines screen print and applique in a montage Ziegler describes as “graffiti color and style meets Rembrandt and Botticelli” — with a spiritual side. “I’m Buddhist ... and pretty into
Kim Perley / Herald A hawk observed students on Wriston Quadrangle Monday.
INSIDE:
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CAMPUS NEWS
www.browndailyherald.com
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continued on page 4
Down the Hill, RISD students cook up T-shirts By Matthew Varley Staf f Writer
hired? Fear not seniors. It looks as though the job market is actually expanding despite an uncertain economy.
������� ��������� ������� Tobacco Marijuana Alcohol
17.9 %
THE HERALD POLL
Student substance use in Fall 2007
17.6 %
Neither Director of Health Edu- �� cation Frances Mantak or Kathleen �� McSharry, associate dean of the Col- �� �� lege and dean for issues of chemical �� dependency, were fazed by these �� �� results. � Mantak said the results of the � Herald poll are, for the most part, �� consistent with data she has seen �� �� from other surveys. �� “From my experience, Brown �� is not incredibly different from the ��� rest of the student population in the �
32.5 %
Anyone who has walked through Wriston Quadrangle on a Saturday night would not be surprised that a recent Herald poll found that over three-fourths of undergraduates had consumed alcohol in the past month and that over 80 percent reported using some substance. Of the students polled, 77.8 percent responded that they had used alcohol, 32.5 percent had used marijuana and 17.6 percent
had used tobacco. 17.9 percent of respondents said they had not used any substances. The Herald poll was conducted from Nov. 5-7 and has a 3.9 percent margin of error with 95 percent confidence. A total of 621 Brown
77.8 %
By Franklin Kanin Senior Staff Writer
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Admission officers often talk about standardized test scores, from the SAT to the ACT and beyond. But with legislation in Washington proposing standardized assessment for college students, University Hall has become embroiled in a nationwide debate over a different kind of assessment in higher education. The discussion was sparked over two years ago, when Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings created the Commission on the Future of Higher Education. The commission, often referred to as the Spellings Commission, was charged with determining how well college students are being prepared for life beyond campus, especially in the workplace. “It is a good question to be asking — what is the value added by going to school for four years?” said Brenda Allen, associate provost and director of institutional diversity. But while many in academia say the commission’s inquiry was laudable, its findings caused worry among university officials across the country. Issued in 2006, the Spellings report found that prose literacy “for all levels of educational attainment” and document literacy “among those with at least some college education” decreased between 1992 and 2003. In addition, the report said, “employers complain that many college graduates are not prepared for the workplace” and parents and students “have no solid evidence, comparable across institutions, of how much students learn in colleges.” Among other recommendations,
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CAMPUS NEWS
Fickle fanatics A Herald poll found that support for athletic teams varies widely across class years.
Eastern philosophy and literature right now,” Ziegler said. The name Thunder Over Thunder comes from the “I Ching,” a classical Chinese text, and evokes “the creation of a new, strong entity,” he explained. The two said they hope to fill a niche in the fashion industry. Verder y said he “started get-
FEATURE ting disappointed in the brands” available in New York City’s SoHo ���� � neighborhood. A native of the city, Verdery established a reputation customizing sneakers in high school. “I started seeing a lot of the same stuff, the all-over prints that were way overpriced,” Verdery said. “That’s when I started wanting to learn to print T-shirts.” Verdery found an ally in Ziegler, who transferred to RISD this semester from Chapman University in his home state of California.
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OPINIONS
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Primary duty A group of guest columnists encourages students to get out and get registered to vote this spring.
“I was always the guy that did the soccer team T-shirt” in high school, Ziegler said. As a high school freshman, he began marketing his own apparel under the brand name Live Loyal. Ziegler studied film and advertising at Chapman — he had never taken an art course before arriving at RISD. Though they have dif ferent styles, both students “wanted to have the great, new spectacular shirts that you can’t find in stores,” Ziegler said. Both study illustration and began making late-night trips to RISD’s printmaking studio early this fall to design clothing in their free time. “We’d hike up there at two in the morning with bags of ink and bags of T-shirts,” Ziegler said. “We had to sneak in, climb up the stairwell, look out for the monitors and wash out the silk screens by the end of the night. Silk screening is pretty continued on page 6
12 SPORTS
Heads held high The men’s soccer team is focusing on the positives of the 2007 season, despite last week’s loss.
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