Plagiarism Definition

The Rutgers Academic Policy states that plagiarism is using someone else’s work without giving them credit. Students will be reprimanded if they copy or are too obviously influenced by a past work produced by someone else. Lethem’s idea of plagiarism is different. He believes that it involves being influenced by the ideas of others, concluding that no idea is truly original. Lethem says that “all ideas are secondhand, consciously and consciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originates them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere” (Lethem 225). Lethem admits that no idea is truly original, so naturally every idea derives from an idea of someone else from the past. There is no need to clearly cite the original idea, but Rutgers requires to do so. Rutgers wants to prevent ideas from being copied and resubmitted, but Lethem basically admits that all ideas are inevitably copied, so humankind should celebrate this vast and deep sphere of influence.