The Following is Divided into Five Parts:

1. A General Overview of Plagiarism
2. A More Detailed Examination
3. A Recent Example from a Professional Writer
4. Responsibilities and Techniques
5. Thoughts about Plagiarism Relative to the Internet

 

A General Overview:

To put your name on a piece of work is to say that it is yours, that the praise or criticism due to it is due to you. To put your name on a piece of work any part of which is not yours is plagiarism, unless that piece is clearly marked and the work from which you have borrowed is fully identified. Plagiarism is a form of theft. Taking words, phrasing, sentence structure, or any other element of the expression of another person’s ideas, and using them as if they were yours, is like taking from that person a material possession, something he or she has worked for and earned. Even worse is the appropriation of someone else’s ideas. By "ideas" is meant everything from the definition or interpretation of a single word, to an overall approach, thesis, or argument. If you paraphrase, you merely translate from his or her language to yours; another person’s ideas in your language are still not your ideas. Paraphrase, therefore, without proper documentation, is theft, perhaps of the worst kind. Here, a person loses not a material possession, but something of what characterized him or her as an individual. Plagiarism is a serious violation of another person’s rights, whether the material stolen is great or small; it is not a matter of degree or intent. You know how much you would have had to say without someone else’s help; and you know how much you have added on your own. Your responsibility, when you put your name on a piece of work, is simply to distinguish between what is yours and what is not, and to credit those who have in any way contributed. (from a statement of student writing, Wake Forest University).

 A More Detailed Examination:

Teachers and writers recognize two types of plagiarism:

1. Verbal Plagiarism:  that is, a writer uses one or more key words used by a source.  If the writer does this every few lines, the practice often results in what is called “mosaic” plagiarism, for the result is a pastiche of ultra-sophisticated sounding words scattered through the piece.  In this case, the writing begins to sound less and less like that of a conventional college undergraduate.  The one exception is technical terms; for instance, “psychosis,” “Freudianism,” “internal combustion engine,” and other words which belong to professional or technical disciplines.
2. Fact or Concept Plagiarism:  that is, a writer appropriates facts or statistics produced by another writer or blatantly takes ideas developed by another.  There are some exceptions; for instance, dates which we generally accept such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Muslim attack on the World Trade Center, or assertions, such as slavery was an important cause of the Civil War.  Generally in using sources for literary papers, students must be very careful how they take ideas from literary critics.  Ernest Jones developed a novel idea about the relationship among Oedipus, Hamlet, and Freud, but that is not “general knowledge.”  Therefore, students commit plagiarism when they appropriate such concepts without complete attribution. 

To avoid both of the above, students must be scrupulous about their note taking. (See the section on note-taking elsewhere on my site). They achieve this goal in two ways: (1) first, if they want to use the LANGUAGE of the source, they must put the words in quotation marks; (2) whether they quote or not, they MUST TELL WHERE THEY GOT THE MATERIAL. This cannot be emphasized too much. Somehow, students get the idea in their pre-college years that a document is a source only when the source is quoted. To repeat: documentation must be given for EVERYTHING that is not original with students. Students achieve documentation with the now-preferred MLA internal citation method (author and page parenthesis). This technique now takes the place of footnoting. (Consult your class notes, our text, or The Little, Brown Handbook, etc. for the MLA style of interior documentation). Elsewhere in my site, I caution you to guard against excessive quotation, for such techniques make your paper sound like a number of other people. When you take notes, at least ninety percent of the time, you should take them in your own words, using the fragmentary method demonstrated on the note cards in the note taking section.

ALWAYS ADHERE TO THE FOLLOWING: anything that is not yours is someone else’s and, hence, must be attributed!!!

A Recent Example:

The N. Y. Post, among other papers, reported on Jan 6, 2002, that the renowned author/historian Stephen Ambrose "plagiarized parts of his new book on World War II bomber pilot."  According to Fred Barnes, executive editor of  The Weekly Standard, Ambrose, in The Wild Blue, "stole phrases from The Wings of Morning, by Thomas Childers, about the same group of airmen.  Barnes said that both books "share similar passages."  In one section, Barnes said Childers wrote thusly about ball turret gunners: "It was the most physically uncomfortable, isolated, and terrifying position on the ship. The gunner climbed into the ball, pulled the hatch closed, and was then lowered into position."  A section in Ambrose's book, focusing on former Sen. George McGovern, reads: "The ball turret was, as McGovern said, the most physically uncomfortable, isolated, and terrifying position on the plane.  The gunner climbed into the ball, pulled the hatch close, and was then lowered into position."  Publisher Simon and Schuster defended the book saying it's "an original and important to work of World War II history.  All research garnered from previously published material is appropriately footnoted."  To give Mr. Ambrose his due, a short time later acknowledged the similarity between various passages, and he promised to make appropriate changes in further editions. 

The point of the above is that even if plagiarism is caused by carelessness, which probably happened in Ambrose's case, the stain is still there, and writers of all levels, especially students, should do their best to determine that all their information and quotations are suitably documented.

Responsibilities and Techniques:

(the following is adapted from the Bowling State University statement on plagiarism):

What responsibilities do authors address when citing source-materials in their writing?

• Attribution: giving appropriate credit to the originator/s of ideas and words
• Accuracy: representing others' words, ideas, and positions as realistically as possible
• Credibility: representing the factuality or authoritativeness of source-ideas appropriately
• (Reader) Convenience: making it as easy as possible for readers to follow up on words or ideas cited

What must be acknowledged?

• Any direct quotation which may be attributed to a specific source: Remember that reproductions of another's exact wording, even if cited, still require quotation marks.
• Paraphrases and summaries of another's ideas or words: A paraphrase, sometimes called an indirect quotation, is by definition a reproduction of another's idea/s in your own words. Paraphrases do not require quotation marks but do require documentation of the material's origin. Any groupings of exactly reproduced source-words in your text constitute quotations, not paraphrasing, and should appear in quotation marks, plus citation. A summary, a compilation of several ideas attributable to a single, external (to yourself) source, also is by definition comprised of your own words, also must be cited, and also you must show with quotation marks any groupings of source words. (By convention, even single words of special significance are placed in quotation marks and cited when attributable to a specific source.)
• Arguable assertions: When possible, any controversial or arguable (not undeniably factual) assertions presented in your writing should be cited. Citing such assertions helps to meet your responsibility for attribution and helps readers recognize their potential for credibility or truth.
• Statistics, charts, tables, and graphs from any source: Cite/credit all graphic material, even if you yourself have created the graph.
• Co-authored or collaborative works: Cite all "co-created" or collaborative ideas and words, including those contained in works for which you may claim some, but not exclusive, credit.

What need not be acknowledged?

• Common knowledge: If many varied readers are familiar with an idea, or its truth is generally accepted, you need not cite it. Quotations, paraphrases, or summaries attributable to a specific source, however, should still be cited, no matter how widely known.
• Facts available from a wide variety of sources: If a number of textbooks, encyclopedias, or almanacs (general-reference sources) include an idea you wish to use in your text, you need not cite it. You can still increase your credibility, however, by citing; most statistics should be cited.
• Your own ideas, discoveries, or words (excluding, of course, words based upon another's words or ideas). REMEMBER: THOSE WORDS ARE HIS/HERS; YOU CANNOT APPROPRIATE THEM AS YOUR OWN. BE ESPECIALLY WARY OF COPYING COMPLETE PHRASES INTO YOUR TEXT.

WHEN IN DOUBT, CITE!!!

 Plagiarism and the Internet:

from: The Reporter
October 22, 1998, Volume 30, No. 9 (University of Buffalo Library)

Electronic Highways Promoting Academic Honesty: Anti-Plagiarism on the Web

Are you searching for repositories of downloadable papers to which your name may be affixed for academic credit? Did you realize how simple it is to copy and paste information from the Web into your research papers without proper citation? Have you realized that possible consequences from such activity may include academic failure and expulsion from this or any other college? Many academics have faulted the Internet for a tendency toward increased campus plagiarism because of the ready availability of information and the ease of downloading and duplicating such material. Fortunately, there are numerous sites on the Web dedicated to combating plagiarism in all its forms.

Two excellent essays which discuss basic aspects of plagiarism are "Plagiary and the Art of Skillful Citation" by John Rodgers (http://condor.bcm.tmc.edu/Micro-Immuno/courses/igr/homeric.html) and "Plagiarism" by Brad Fiero (http://west.cscwc.pima.edu/~bfiero/plagrsm.htm).

Unconscious plagiarism results from careless note-taking, overusing quoted passages, or keeping catchy phrases or ideas in one's mind and replicating them without recalling that they are actually someone else's. It is beneficial to examine your own writing to ensure that it is truly original in thought and word. Glatt Plagiarism Services has devised a simple test to detect whether you may have inadvertently plagiarized. This test (http://www.plagiarism.com/self.detect.htm) is based on memory retention of text and is free of charge.

Instructors who suspect plagiarism in their classes may utilize the Internet as a detection agent. Some search engines such as Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.digital.com/) and Hotbot (http://www.hotbot.com/) may assist in searching uncharacteristic phrases in a text to determine whether the phrases may have been duplicated from elsewhere. Optionally, an instructor might employ an outside service, such as Plagiarism.org (http://www.plagiarism.org/), which checks submitted manuscripts against other documents on the Net to detect blatant instances of plagiarized text.

The best prevention of plagiarism is self-education. Learn tips for your own writing such as in Sharon Williams' "Avoiding Plagiarism" (http://www.hamilton.edu/academic/Resource/WC/AvoidingPlagiarism.html). The University of Buffalo Libraries offers links to sites on proper citation of electronic resources (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/help/, under the heading "Guides to Using the Internet").

 Concluding Remarks:

From the above pages, it should be obvious that PLAGIARISM IS A SERIOUS MATTER.  You might have thought it cute to “outwit” the teacher in pre-college school years by lifting material about Ecuador from the Encyclopedia Britannica.  In college, it is not only considered "uncute"; it is a punishable offense, usually by some sort of academic punishment such as suspension or expulsion.  When my son was at Princeton, a young woman was found guilty of having lifted great chunk, verbatim, from a Spanish literary source into her senior thesis.  Her punishment, assigned by the Student Court, was that she had to wait a year to graduate, meaning that she could not pursue her law school acceptances.  The whole story appeared on the front page of The New York Times, and readers were shocked to discover that the overwhelming majority of Princeton students thought the punishment too lenient.  They thought she should have been expelled and completely denied her degree forever.

REMEMBER THAT AVOIDING PLARIARISM BEGINS WITH PRECISE NOTE-TAKING.

In class, I have used the expression "fragmentary babytalk" to characterize the kind of language with which you should take notes.  If you follow that technique, you will, at least, avoid the linguistic type of plagiarism.

If you put notes properly on your note cards; if you carefully distinguish between what you have put in quotes from what you have put in paraphrased language; and mainly, if you carefully paraphrase THE GREAT MAJORITY OF YOUR NOTES, quoting only occasionally for effect, you should have no trouble.