COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER

Southland Times, Issue 25341, 20 July 1935, Page 18

COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER

My dear Cousins, Well, my authors and poets and artists, one of you raised an important point in a letter the postman brought me this week. Cousin Morning Glory WlteS “ln the animal competition, may we slightly copy drawings; or at least, may we copy? (not trace). The same with stories: may we find something interesting, and write it in different words? I am glad this cousin asked these questions and Decause they concern vou all I am answering them here. y All work in the Page MUST BE ORIGINAL. If a story or poem is suggested to you by some other story or poem you have read, then you should sav so, marking it quite clearly on your entry. For example. Suppose you had read “Alice in Wonderland,” and you wanted to write a story about another little girl who had gone to sleep and dreamed that she was in a wonderful country. You should write on your story: This was suggested to me by reading‘Alice in Wonderland.’” “Plagiarism" means taking another persons thoughts or writings as one's own I’m afraid it is usually called by an uglier name—cheating—and I am sure none of my Little Southlanders would ever deliberately cheat. In drawing competitions, drawings may be copied if they are marked, “My own work, copied” (or “partly copied”). It is better practice, of course, if you use your own ideas. „ , , T , , , . Is this quite clear to you all, cousins? Goodness me! Im a lecturing Cousin Betty this morning, but I don’t feel the least bit “lecture-y.” Why? Partly because I’ve been reading a Chinese play called “Lady Precious Stream,” in which the Prime Minister Wang says: “To-day is New Year’s Day. I want to celebrate it in some way. It looks as if it is going to snow. I propose that we have a feast here in the garden to enjoy the snow.” To enjoy the snow! That is the secret of how to live. How many of us, when it is raining, would suggest that we have a feast to enjoy the rain? Cousin Chrissie Ross writes that Dunedin is having a foretaste of Spring, and Cousin Isobel McKenzie tells me the bell birds are beginning to sing again in her part of the world. What signs have you noticed that Spring is less than a fortnight away?

Your loving,