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AstrologyNotes:Plagiarism

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Plagiarism refers to the use of another's ideas, information, language, or writing, when done without proper acknowledgment of the original source. Essential to an act of plagiarism is an element of dishonesty in attempting to pass off the plagiarised work as original. Plagiarism is not necessarily the same as copyright infringement, which occurs when one violates copyright law.

1 Plagiarism vs Copyright
2 A Definition of Plagiarism
3 Plagiarism and the Internet
4 References
5 Internet links

Plagiarism vs Copyright

The issue of public domain works versus copyrighted works is irrelevant to the concept of plagiarism. For instance, it is legal for a student to copy several paragraphs (or even pages) of text from a public domain book, such as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and then directly add these quotations to his or her own paper. However if these quotations were not clearly identified as to his or her source, then the student would be guilty of plagiarism, using another writer's work as if it were his or her own. High schools, colleges and Universities are especially sensitive to plagiarism, and as a result, they have academic codes of ethics which prohibit plagiarism in all its forms.

A Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism as a noun refers to a written work copied from an uncited source and passed off as being the work of another person. Plagiarism as a verb is the act of creating such a work. It is not plagiarism when two (or more) people independently come up with the same idea or analysis. There are also cases of accidental plagiarism, when an individual is unaware they are copying another's work. One case involved a boy whose mother had repeatedly read to him a story as a very small child. Later in life he was writing a story for an assignment, and a story 'came to him', but the story turned out to be exactly that which his mother had read to him as a small child, though he had no recollection of her reading it to him.

According to Diana Hacker, the citation criteria as specified by the MLA (Modern Language Association) (115), APA (American Psychological Association) (157-158), Chicago-Style (186), and others (228-230): "Three different acts are considered plagiarism: (1) failing to cite quotations and borrowed ideas, (2) failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, and (3) failing to put summaries and paraphrases in your own words." A Pocket Style Manual, 4h ed., 2004 Bedford/St. Martin's

Plagiarism and the Internet

The widespread use of the Internet has increased the incidence of plagiarism. Students are able to use search engines to locate information on a wide range of topics. Once located, this information can be cut-and-pasted into their own documents with minimal effort. The size of the Internet makes it difficult for teachers to trace the source of plagiarised material.

There are also websites which provide complete essays for students to download. These websites provide a database of subject-specific topics; some provide custom-made essays on any topic (for a fee). Some of the largest fee-based term paper sites are: Go2Essay, Fast Papers, AcaDemon, Custom Research Papers, EssayToday, Essay Town and Research Assistance.

The Internet can also be used to combat plagiarism. Teachers can use search engines to search for parts of suspicious essays. Using search engines to check papers for plagiarism, however, is neither practical nor effective since teachers lack the time necessary to check each paper by hand using an online search engine. For this reason, many teachers have turned to plagiarism prevention services that automate the search process and check essays for plagiarised material by comparing each paper against millions of online sources. The techniques used in such engines are often based on variants of the Rabin-Karp string search algorithm. Despite these counteractions, some empirical evidence suggests that the overall effect of the Internet is to increase plagiarism.

References

The original text of this page was copied from Wikipedia's article on plagiarism - retrieved 6/1/2005 under the GFDL (please see orignal article for transparent copy and page history for list of authors)