blog 3

Eiloa and Selber define the word “assemblage” as something being “constructed from the conceptual, linguistic, and sociopolitical forces active in several different locations”. This is very similar to the definition of remix, which is a “variant of an original recording made by rearranging or adding to the original”. They both essentially mean the same thing in the fact that they create something new by pulling from different sources. We always need to borrow from a different source and we need to intertwine the source in new ways; this creates an assemblage. An assemblage could be a template in which the layout is mimicked but the information is new. A designer could come along and remix a new template by combining elements from the old template. It can be said that assemblage and remix can go hand and hand.

         However we can see a line where there is a distinct difference between assemblages and plagiarism. This difference is called patchwriting. Patchwriting is taking information from a source text and deleting some words, or altering grammatical structures, or using very similar synonyms. It maybe that writers strive to make sure that their work is their own. They also look to copyright law to ensure that their own works are safe from plagiarism and being copied.

         I was a little confused on section 4 in that fact that it was a little difficult to understand the comparisons to the computer templates and designs. I thought this article put an interesting spin on plagiarism, assemblage, and originality.