Plagiarism What it is and how to avoid it ....

[Misanthrope 0]

Plagiarism

What it is and How to Avoid it

 

Mention the word, “plagiarism” and thoughts of college students frantically copying and pasting copyrighted material for term papers readily comes to mind. Indeed, with the advent of Internet access for all, plagiarism has become a growing pestilence in the world of academia. So much so that the hallowed halls of knowledge are now doing everything from utilizing plagiarism detection software to appointing judicial boards to hear cases. Above all, clear policies are laid out explaining what plagiarism is, and the relatively easy steps one can take to avoid it. But academia isn’t the only venue suffering from this parasitic activity. From public forums to personal web sites, the Internet has made it possible for folks to gain access to a whole world of knowledge on a scale unthinkable to past generations. No one can deny the web’s benefits, but easy access has also opened the door to unscrupulous, vampiric types who have no qualms sucking the literary soul from their unsuspecting hosts.

 

I’m afraid there’s more to plagiarism than the blatant copy and paste phenomena most of us are familiar with. So what exactly is plagiarism, you ask? The word plagiarism stems from the Latin root, “to steal,” I personally prefer using the words, “to suck,” as the non-academic plagiarizer is naught but an empty vessel who must feed off the genius of others to mask his own inferiority and lack of original thought. He is a vile, parasitic fiend who cares neither for his host or the public he so willingly deceives.

 

Having said that, there are many ways of defining and detecting plagiarism, but it pretty much all comes down to this. In a fraudulent nutshell, you commit plagiarism when you suck the original mental juice from someone else and attempt to spew it forth as your own without so much as swallowing first. Or, for a less colorful description, the legal definition per Nolo.com is:

“Passing off someone else's work as your own, whether word for word or merely the creative ideas. This can amount to copyright infringement if permission has not been obtained from the copyright owner for use of the expressive elements of the work. Even if permission is granted, putting your name on someone else's work is still plagiarism and is unethical within artistic, scientific, academic and political communities.”

A few words from the above paragraphs may have piqued your interest by now (at least I hope they have). Those words are original and creative, and they are key to recognizing and avoiding plagiarism. To fully understand the concept, you must first familiarize yourself with “common knowledge:”

Example of common knowledge: Plagiarism is using the words, style, line of thought and/or ideas of someone else without giving them any acknowledgement.

 

This is well known, general (common) knowledge based on facts known to a large number of people, and has become part of man’s collective consciousness, if you will. Therefore, there is no need to cite the source or use quotations unless you have lifted a direct, verbatim quote. Per the Chicago Manual of Style, there’s no need to use quotations on well-known biblical or literary expressions either.

 

Contrast common knowledge with the same information interpreted in an original way:

Example of Original work: The willful plagiarist is the psychic vampire of the literary world. He leaches off the creative spark of his victim, thereby extinguishing it. (Misanthrope)

 

Here, the author has interpreted common knowledge in his own, original style. If you absolutely must use this author’s creative interpretation and metaphor in your own work –even if paraphrased, you must cite him if you want to avoid the scarlet letter of plagiarism. Better yet, why not develop your own creative style of writing? You'll find after reading enough sources and writing a good deal eventually you'll find you're own inner voice.

 

Scholars have identified five different types of plagiarism. Per Dr. C Barnbaum of Valdosta State University, they are:

Type 1. Copy and Paste

Type 2. Word Switch

Type 3. Style

Type 4. Metaphor

Type 5. Idea

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to focus on three levels of plagiarism most likely to be recognized and encountered in Internet venues: outright, substantial, and minimal. Outright plagiarism would certainly encompass “copy and paste,” which is simply stealing part or all of someone else’s work, word for word (verbatim). The college student who buys a term paper from a literary house of prostitution, then submits it as his own work is a fine example. Included in this category would be the lifting of an artistic work in its entirety, say, an original Photoshop signature. Obviously, copy and paste is the easiest form of plagiarism to detect and prosecute, but most abusers avoid it for this very reason.

 

Substantial plagiarizing would include word switch, or paraphrasing, and occurs when the plagiarizer moves and/or changes a word or two but maintains the original idea of the source. This is the most common trap folks fall into. The plagiarizer may have inserted a few words of his own, or moved around a few sentences, but isn’t fooling anyone – least of all the person whose original material was lifted, mutilated, and plagiarized.

 

By now you’re probably wondering how the heck you’ll ever get hosting points at venues like internet forums if you have to put all your paraphrased material in quote tags. Fear not fellow Trapster, as there is a completely acceptable method of paraphrasing. First of all, remind yourself that much of what you'll come across is considered common knowledge, and therefore not something you need worry about quoting. But watch out for common knowledge an individual has interpreted in an original way (see example of original work above). Make sure you digest his source material completely, walk away from it, then regurgitate the material with your own distinct words, line of thought, and most importantly-style. Now you no longer have to use a quote tag because you’ve put the idea into your own words. HOWEVER, you still need to acknowledge the original source of the idea/interpretation by citing the author. Outside of the scholarly/professional setting this could be as simple as following your paraphrase with the author’s name in parenthesis, or at least acknowledging the source somewhere in your work. If you cite several works and prefer a cleaner appearance, you could do what the pros do, which looks something like this:

 

Example: “The willful plagiarist is the psychic vampire of the literary world. He leaches off the creative spark of his victim, thereby extinguishing it.” (2)

Then, at the bottom of your post/article/work, you would list your documentation:

Notes:

2. The Enlightened Misanthrope, “Memoirs of an Enlightened Misanthrope.” Silly Person Publishing, 2005. Accessed online February 12, 2007.

 

And lastly, we have minimal plagiarism (per westmont.edu), which is defined as the following, without citing the source:

ˇ inserting verbatim phrases of 2-3 distinctive words.

ˇ substituting synonyms into the original sentence rather than rewriting the complete sentence.

ˇ reordering the clauses of a sentence.

ˇ imitating the sentence, paragraph, or organizational structure, or writing style of a source (Saupe, 1998; Student Judicial Affairs, UCD, 1999).

ˇ using a source's line of logic, thesis or ideas.

Within this category I would also include the imitation of metaphors, as previously noted per Dr.C Barnbaum. Now, when the plagiarist repeatedly engages in minimal plagiarism, it moves up a notch to the category of substantial. So, if you think you can pull one over with incremental lifts you assume no one will notice, think again. It’s of note that only 10% of an original work needs to be copied to be considered substantial, and thereby constitute copyright infringement.

 

Now – down to the nitty gritty: plagiarism does not specifically appear in federal statutes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t file suit against the parasite who attempts to take credit for your creativity. Plagiarism is not only unethical, it is illegal, and you have every right to maintain control over how your ideas are used and presented. I will not go into the details of copyright and fair use here, as the subject appears to have been adequately covered by Rejected here: http://forums.xisto.com/topic/24076-copyright-protection-what-iscopyright-protection/

Suffice it to say, if it is decided the plagiarism falls within the realm of copyright infringement, your legal position is even stronger. In a venue where all we have are our words and images, these things, in essence - define who we are. To that end alone the plagiarist is worse than a blood-sucking parasite. He is soul-sucker; a virulent disease to be eradicated, lest he contaminate and compromise the integrity of all venues that claim to promote original thought and creativity.

 

In closing, I'd like to stress that the above definitions of plagiarism are not my opinion. They are not intangible mysteries open to conjencture or debate. They are facts confirmed and accepted by professional and legal institutions, and for that reason I chose to open up the topic under, "What Is." Whether some feel the standards should not be enforced fairly across the board is irrelevant, as the standards exist with or without their approval. As a simple analogy, choosing to manipulate the law is akin to saying, "I won't stop for the red light because I'm in a small town....it really doesn't matter. Besides - I don't intend to hurt anyone." Ignorance, intent (or lack thereof) or refusal to follow common practice will not prevent a ticket being issued. Hopefully, some of you will walk away with a better understanding of what constitutes plagiarism, and how you can prevent becoming a victim and/or leaching off someone else's original work.

 

Having said that, I'd now like to open up the topic to comments on your personal experiences with plagiarism. Where and how did it happen, what steps (if any), did you take to mitigate it, what sort of response did you receive, and how did the whole experience effect you?

Edited April 11, 2007 by Misanthrope (see edit history)

[Saint_Michael 3]

Yeah I can now post what I was going to post, just a small reminder that my post was based on that from the other posts concerning this topic so hopefully it makes some sense....

One of my favorite topics, To clear up a few things forums and college research papers are 2 different forms of communication, however both follow the same idea's about what a person writes that is not their own work. I show you the best exmaple Here.

This is my research paper for my english class, right now it is copyrighted to me since I wrote it and of course I listed every single source that I used either paraphrased, summerized, or direct quote. Now that I posted it on this site I still have full copyright protection, but also Full forum protection under my username from someone else copying and using it as their own. Yeah I take the risk someone will just burn it off as their own and use it, their no way to escape that. Yeah I could pay some money to get a copyright protection notice on it. But thats cheap way to do it and I don't feel like doing it.

Now in term terms of forum copyright, the person who originally posted it has full copyrights to post it on another forum, but they have to make mention of that if they go under a different username. But to be safe try to use the same username so you won't be doing this fighting back and forth between other members, mods and admin.

Now Misanthrope when it comes to plagiarism here on Xisto thats in reference to code, news articles and tutorials to name a few. If you notice from my posts in the security forums I listed my source just due to the fact they are coming from different articles and also used to verify what I have posted and also since I didn't bother citing them correctly, yeah it would beneficial to help in my writing skills to do it, but when your trying to pass on some quick info their is no real need to cite it correctly.. Now when it comes to simple questions say like "how I do this?" or "how do I do that?" You can summerize from your resource, in which most people here on trap do that. That of course depends on how specific the question that someone is asking, if it's a vague question then most like it would be beneficial to post links that a person might need to use.

I only can imagine how many post I caught back in the day that where straight up copying and pasted from somewhere else. Also it's important to know that forums are the least likely place for someone in college to cite for their paper, they will look for full websites are specific. In a college paper it's not that hard to figure out if they plagiarized or not, you can tell by the wording, when it comes to forums people have a style of posting. If a person believes that person is just cheating they will report it to the mods, it takes practice to catch the real sneaky posts in which they look legit but sometimes the wording would give it away.


So to sum up unless your real anal about how you write either through posts or college papers, their is really no need to cite in MLA or APA in a forum, but make sure to mention some sort of reference somewhere in your post so people will have an idea what you are talking about.

[Misanthrope 0]

So to sum up unless your real anal about how you write either through posts or college papers, their is really no need to cite in MLA or APA in a forum, but make sure to mention some sort of reference somewhere in your post so people will have an idea what you are talking about.

Excellent observations Saint Michael. I suppose I need to clarify that my article is aimed at forum posters who may have an interest in correct citing etiquette and the avoidance of copyright infringement - not students writing term papers. The first paragraph regarding college cheating was more an introduction. It was meant as a springboard to explain how the pestilence of plagiarism has spread to all venues of intellectual exchange - particularly the internet forum. I totally agree that a forum venue is much more casual (i.e. less "anal"l) than a scholarly environment, which is why I pointed out very simple methods for acknowledging sources. However, I think it would also be a mistake to downplay the serious nature of plagiarism. To that end, I felt it necessary to point out the "anal" details of literary vampirism...er, I mean, plagiarism. Edited April 10, 2007 by Misanthrope (see edit history)

[FolkRockFan 0]

I'm a college student, freelance writer and forum junkie. Sometimes it seems like I encounter plagiarism everywhere I go (because - let's face facts here - I spend an obscene amount of time writing one type of thing or another).I'm an English major with a minor in creative writing. Most of the other English majors at my college are pretty good about writing their own papers. We all *choose* to sign up for a whole bunch of classes that require a lot of writing. We're all there because of free will...and most of us accept the things that go with that decision. A few run to the term paper mill when a research paper is due (or overdue in some cases) and they did not work on their own writing. I can't stand these people. They don't have to cheat. They have other options. But they choose to do a rotten thing.Fortunately, my university's anti-plagiarism policies are very tough. The school reserves the right to discipline a student who writes a unique research paper...but forgets to cite one or two sources. Most profs understand that, in almost every case, this is a genuine accident. But the policies are tough and clear so that we're all forewarned of the consequences. If a student has frequent problems, the school has the power to bring down tougher discipline.What truly ticks me off about academic plagiarism is the term paper mill. The excuse is that the essays and papers are "just examples." Well...not many buyers use the papers as mere guidelines. Most palm off the works as their own. One of the common "excuses" that I've heard: "Well, the original author sold it to me, so I have the rights to it."Yeah, maybe. But that does not trump plagiarism. You (generalization) are still passing off the work as your own. The profs still expect you to do your own research and writing. And if you're caught, the profs will still punish you for plagiarism.