Taking an Approach

Harris says “taking an approach” is like reworking a piece. How can you rework a piece and maintain what the author was saying, while creating a new approach of your own. I think that without careful work, the process could be mislabeled as plagiarism. However, it goes on all the time, as Harris points out. “The cover song, in which one musician reinterprets a song associated with another, is a staple of rock and roll. And what you listen for in a good cover is not an imitation of the original, as in karaoke or American Idol, but a new rendering of it.”

News stories are very similar to the above example. Each writer reads an article, or several articles, in order to formulate the basis of his article. He takes what others have said into account, but the paper he writes is based more upon what he feels about the subject. Just like in music. The songwriter takes someone else’s words and expands or reworks them to formulate his own opinion.

This idea borders on the idea of plagiarism. Why? Well, you are taking other peoples’ work and creating your own piece out of it. But you do not cite your sources because you are not copying from them. You simply take what they have to say, and rework it in order to take some approach of you own. Though, this occurs all the time in the real world, I still feel like the idea of taking an approach should be further investigated by a writer in order to be fair and genuine in their work.