Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the act of copying another person's ideas, words or writing and pretending that they are one's own work.[1] It can involve violating copyright laws.[2] College students who are caught plagiarizing can be expelled from school. It can permanently damage a student's reputation.[3] Writers who plagiarize commit serious legal and ethical violations.[3]
Types of plagiarism
- Direct Plagiarism – copying and pasting someone else's work, or making minor changes to someone else's work to pass it off as their own.[4]
- Self-Plagiarism – Happens when a student submits all or part of their own previous work without getting permission from all involved professors.[4]
- Mosaic Plagiarism – Or "patch writing," is when parts of other works are copied without using quotation marks. It can also be when a student keeps the same structure and meaning of an original passage and only uses synonyms.[4]
- Accidental Plagiarism – This can happen when a student does not cite their sources. It can also happen when a student paraphrases information without giving attribution (credit to the original author or authors).[4]
- Mash-up – Two or more data sources that have been turned into one. They may be graphics, texts, songs, and video from various media.[5][6]
Legal issues
Many cases of plagiarism, especially in schools, can lead to internal punishment.[3] Certain people have been punished in a legal court for plagiarism, mostly due to copyright claims. Court cases include:
- Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp. (1936)[7]
- Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp. (1930)[7]
- Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures (1987)[7]
Any work created in the US after 1st. Mar 1989 is automatically protected by copyright, even if there is no copyright notice attached to the work.[7] The defendant could sue for any copying of this kind of intellectual property.[7]
Avoiding plagiarism
It is usually not enough to know what plagiarism is, students must also know how to avoid plagiarism.[8] Writers are as responsible for intentional plagiarism as they are for accidental plagiarism.[8] It is important to cite sources while doing research. Putting this off until later can cause some sources to be forgotten or incorrectly cited.[8]
When using a source, make sure the content is in the same context as the paper.[8] Try to avoid using biased sources.[8] Always take the time to find the correct information about a source.[8] For example, some web pages may be part of a larger website. While a web page article may seem fair and balanced, it can be affected by the overall bias or reputation of the publisher.[8] Using something out of context can also lead to charges of plagiarism.[8] Taking the time to properly cite all sources in a paper or work is paying respect to the original ideas of others.[9] This is all part of doing good work.
Related pages
- Copyright
- Copyright infringement
- Academic dishonesty
- Fair use
- Wikipedia:Citing sources (Wikipedia guideline)
- Ghostwriter
- Pastiche
