[Mins] literary & scholarly etiquette

Mon Dec 2 01:04:47 UTC 2013

Hi John and others.

Thanks for reminding us to be credible in this part of our work in the
Lord's kingdom.
The only other thought I had was that some people may have been unaware
that one needs to aknowledge another's work when using it sermons or
bulletin blogs or meditations. 'Copy and paste' with acknowledgement is
simply wrong. So thanks for the gracious reminder.

Blessings

John Zuidema

On Monday, December 2, 2013, WPGadsby wrote:

> Hi John and others,
>
>
>
> Reminds me of the story about the little church that couldn’t afford a
> minister, so every week students from a nearby seminary would take the
> service.
>
> One week a young bloke preached and began by acknowledging that he had
> ‘borrowed’ the sermon from C.H.Spurgeon (the famous 19th century London
> preacher). After the service, one of the elders spoke to him. “It’s
> interesting that you mentioned that you’d borrowed the sermon from Mr
> Spurgeon, because it was the same sermon we had last week. Must have been
> Mr Spurgeon his self!”
>
>
>
> More seriously, this issue has come up recently with regard to Pastor Mark
> Driscoll, who has been caught our quoting extensively from the work of Dr
> Peter Jones, without proper acknowledgment. Details here<http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/11/27/mark-driscoll-silent-amid-mounting-allegations-of-plagiarism/>
> .
>
>
>
> I reckon that there is a grey area between plagiarism and “research.” In
> the latter case, you studied and weighed the views of others, and come to
> your own convictions about the matter. In the former, you just lazily quote
> verbatim, or nearly so, the words of another. According to the above-cited
> web page, an IP fellow at Columbia has stated that “Copyright laws protect
> expression — the exact ordering of words – not the idea.”
>
>
>
> Can we narrow the grey area?
>
>
>
> Blessings,
>
>
>
> Peter G
>
> Canberra
>
>
>
> *From:* mins-bounces at crca.org.au <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
> 'mins-bounces at crca.org.au');> [mailto:mins-bounces at crca.org.au<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'mins-bounces at crca.org.au');>]
> *On Behalf Of *jwestendorp at crca.org.au <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
> 'jwestendorp at crca.org.au');>
> *Sent:* Monday, 2 December 2013 9:40 AM
> *To:* mins at crca.org.au <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'mins at crca.org.au');>
> *Subject:* [Mins] literary & scholarly etiquette
>
>
>
> Good morning men.
>
>
>
> I trust you had a wonderful Lord’s Day yesterday.  We certainly did and
> were blessed by Andrew’s third sermon on Song of Songs.  We hope to have it
> accessible from our church web page shortly.  I said to someone yesterday,
> “I’ve only ever heard one sermon on Song of Songs and that was as
> allegorical as could be.  Andrew’s approach was refreshing and it’s good to
> see that sending Andrew to the last Preaching Conference at the RTC has
> paid dividends for us in Toowoomba J
>
>
>
> I write this though because I want to raise a matter for discussion on the
> MINS email list that has troubled me for some time.  It’s the matter of
> acknowledging our sources.  That’s a difficult matter and I know that there
> are a lot of grey areas.  In our preaching we do heaps of research that
> includes not only grammars and lexicons but also commentaries and the even
> the sermons of others.  At the end of the day we may end up with a sermon
> that has “borrowed” from half a dozen sources or more.  Most of us, if we
> have a lengthy quote, will acknowledge the source.  It’s even happened that
> at the start of a new series of sermons I begin by acknowledging my
> indebtedness to a certain book/author.  However there is a grey area where
> we use ideas that we pick up and then develop further ourselves.  It
> becomes a nightmare – and a hindrance to good communication – to repeatedly
> say, “I just want to acknowledge that I got that idea from Matthew Henry
> (or whoever)”.  I sometimes take consolation in the thought that it has all
> been said before.
>
>
>
> The same is true for the stuff we put in our bulletins.  If we thought it
> up ourselves we put our own name under it.  If we’ve taken it from a book
> or off the internet then it is good etiquette to acknowledge the source.
> In fact not to do so could lead us to be charged with plagiarism.  Although
> I’m mindful of the quote, “If you borrow the words of one author it’s
> called plagiarism, if you borrow from twenty authors it’s called
> scholarship!”.
>
>
>
> I mention all this because I do take the time these days to listen to some
> of the sermons being preached in our churches and I also get a fair number
> of church bulletins crossing my desk.  There have been times when I have
> thought, “That sounds familiar!”  The helpful thing is that these days you
> can do a google search on a whole phrase or sentence.  When that same
> sentence (or even paragraph) then pops up on a website then it’s obvious
> that it has been cut and pasted.  And please don’t think you can get away
> by arguing that the same Spirit who inspired the other author also inspired
> you J
>
>
>
> We need to remember not only that doing this is not good etiquette... it
> is also embarrassing when you are caught out.  In fact many years ago a man
> was actually dismissed from the ministry when it was found out that all his
> sermons had been plagiarised – in that case simply by being translated from
> another language but never acknowledged.
>
>
>
> This is not intended to be taken as me having a shot at anyone – I just
> want to raise a concern I have and I trust that those who find that the cap
> fits, will indeed wear it.
>
>
>
> Thanks for hearing me out.
>
>
>
> Please add your words of wisdom if you have something to offer.
>
>
>
> John Westendorp (CRC Toowoomba)
>
>
>
>
>
> *Westy’s Weekly Blog*
>
> *Pearls*
>
>

-- 
Zuidy

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