Assemblage and Plagarism

Johnson-Eiola and Selber’s idea of assemblage is defined as texts that are created from parts of something that was already created in order to solve problems in new contexts. In this way, assemblages are very similar to a remix. Like an assemblage text, a remix is a text that is created from bits and parts of another text or ideas. Assemblages also acknowledge the idea that texts are influenced by what came before it and what was experienced. The article not only talks about assemblages but it also addresses plagiarism and originality. The article states that the hierarchy of original text causes students to plagiarize because citation are looked down on in the hierarchy of writing. The performance of writing is based off of originality but they fight in the text to change that to the ability to use original work to create something new that can solve contextual problems. The article approaches the idea of plagiarism not as illegal, but of a way of creating newer and better text in the world of writing by adjusting from the method of creating an original text to the idea of writing in the way of our postmodern world. The part of the article that confused me was when they started to describe the researched done by Rebecca Moore. The research of gender metaphors that associated originality with masculinity and plagiarism with femininity. The idea behind this research was confusing to me and I did not understand where the connection between the two were supposed to be made.