About two weeks ago I received an article submission that immediately attracted my attention. The title was identical to
title of an article I wrote and which was published in 'WebProNews' in May 1999. "Probably just a coincidence", I thought to myself, and kept reading. But first paragraph stopped me in my tracks. It was quite clearly plagiarized from my article. As I kept reading I recognized sentence after sentence that had been lifted from my article and then modified slightly.
The whole article was plagiarized. I could hardly believe it. As English say, I was 'gob-smacked'.
------------------------------ What Is Plagiarism? ------------------------------
'Plagiarism' comes from Latin word 'plagiarius', a kidnapper. Here are two dictionary definitions of plagiarism:
'[to] take (the work or idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own' (Concise Oxford Dictionary, Third Edition, 1999).
'to appropriate ideas, passages etc. from another work or author' (Collins Dictionary of English Language, ed. P. Hanks 1979).
Plagiarism can be done in many ways, but most common technique is to paraphrase someone else's words.
Here's an example:
Original:
"And if you've matched ezine to product you're selling, you've reached your target audience."
Plagiarized version:
"If you have correctly matched ezine or newsletter to product you're selling, then you will have reached your target audience."
As you can see, plagiarist has simply taken original and then replaced phrase 'you've matched' with phrase 'you have correctly matched', inserted words 'or newsletter', and replaced word 'you've' with words 'then you will have'.
Part of reason that plagiarism is so rampant on Internet is that many people genuinely believe that it's okay to take someone else's writing, make a few changes, and then present it as their own.
---------------------------------- Is Plagiarism a Crime? ----------------------------------
As far as I know plagiarism is not a crime in most countries, and this is probably because plagiarism is so difficult to define. How many words does a plagiarist have to substitute and rearrange before copied version ceases to be a copy of original?
This is why plagiarism is much more difficult to deal with than copyright theft. A copyright thief simply steals your work, lock-stock-and-barrel. A plagiarist steals your work and disguises it as their own.
But while plagiarism may not be a crime, it is heavily sanctioned in professions that are based on written word. I know of one professor of sociology who lost his job almost overnight because he plagiarized someone else's work. And in journalism consequences of being exposed as a plagiarist would be same.
