An undergraduate in Film Studies  #1

SOURCE TEXT:

Hirsch, F. (1990) Love, Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life in Woody Allen’s films.

Writer’s text:

Aside from religion, Allen’s favorite themes are love, sex, and relationships in New York. Annie Hall is probably one of greatest films ever made about relationships.

Writer’s comment:

This “love, sex, and relationships” is actually taken from a book title that I was using. I wanted to say something about love, sex and relationships, but those are the three words inspired by the title of that book.

Graduate student comments:

1. I would agree… it’s not exactly the same, it’s not “Love, Sex and Death”, and this is “love, sex, and…”, it’s a very common sort of pairing having that sex, lies, love all tangled in together, I think it’s a very common theme. (Library & Information Studies)
2. I don’t actually agree… You are making assumptions about what his “favorite themes are”. Where is just something which someone else has written… I would put as an alternative saying “according to Hirsch (1990 ) where the paper is, Allen’s favorite themes are this”. (Business)

Faculty comments:

I don’t see that as borrowing. I mean anybody could say that…It’s quite general stuff. It’s like summarization of the work, sex and relationship. I would not call that plagiarizing. (Education faculty member)

 

There are two problems here. First of all, the writer seems to be a bit confused about what the book title actually said. In a sense this is not a case of borrowing an exact phrase or title or anything. The student actually changed the components, so in fact didn’t do what she said she did. So it’s non-issue. There wouldn’t be any need to cite Hersey here at all. If the student had said ‘Allen’s favorite themes are love, sex, death, and the meaning of life,’ then I would expect it to have been put in quotes and cited ‘Hersey (1990).’ If just two words like love and sex, it’s a different view. That’s not Hersey’s claim… the student actually is saying ‘in fact I used part of Hersey’s view here, but I have my own view that I am making a claim on, it’s a different claim. In which case, the student would be wise to cite Hersey’s book as one of the inspirations or sources of their thinking, but certainly not as a source of this phrase… They are very common concepts. Uncontroversial. (Education faculty member) )

Web Dictionary Comment

These are common terms. There is no need to quote.