Plagiarism

Plagiarism is "the act of passing off as one's own the ideas or writings of another" per the Georgetown University Honor Council. It has never been so easy to plagiarize as it is today. The Internet is a virtual smorgasbord of information on every topic possible available at the press of a button. And once located, a simple cut and paste is all it takes to steal another person's work.

Prior to the arrival of the Internet plagiarism was time consuming, requiring research and copying information, but the Internet offers instant gratification and instant papers. For the truly bold, the Internet offers completed essay on the topic of your choice for a fee - just enter a credit card number and your senior thesis is done.

Do I condone plagiarism - absolutely not! I admit that I have read material that I felt I could not write any better. But to copy the work as my own would be cheating the author, cheating my reader, and most of all cheating me. Writing is the way people express themselves and convey what they know and they feel. Learning to write is not a process that can be short circuited, but those willing to plagiarize have no interest in learning. That will eventually catch up with them. Moreover, adopting someone else's words or just a group words is pure and simple stealing.

I agree with the definition that plagiarism is the theft of "intellectual property." If an individual creates a document, it is their product or their property. If it is published or placed on the Internet, they should expect it to be read and perhaps cited, but they do not expect it to be stolen. That expectation may be more and more a fantasy, but the expectation is justified even if unrealistic.

Quotation marks or citations to the source are all this is required to avoid plagiarism. The difficulty lies in the gray areas, such as when does paraphrasing, saying the same idea but in different words, constitute plagiarism. Additionally, certainly there are some instances where entire sentences or even entire passages can be duplicated without plagiarism. "The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912." This is a factual statement of common knowledge, and probably has been written numerous times. But contrast that with "Below decks on the ill-fated Titanic, carefully synchronized clocks kept perfect time until icy salt water stopped them at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912." THS - Made in Belfast; Steel Titanic Wall Clock. (2001-2004) (Online) The Titanic Historical Society web site. URL: http://secured.titanichistoricalsociety.org . Without attribution that is clearly plagiarism. -The latter sentence gives the author's meaning/feeling to the incident along with stating the fact. Moreover, some statements such as: "I have a dream..." or "I'm not a crook" without quotations may not be plagiarism because they are not possible to pass as off as someone else's other than Martin Luther King or Richard Nixon, respectively. Yet, the definition of plagiarism seems to fit. Intent seems to be a factor with plagiarism - did this person blatantly and intentionally duplicate