What is digital plagiarism?Posted by: barrmar on Oct 01, 2010   |
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"Noun: Plagiarism
1. A piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work
2. The act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own" - Wordweb (source).
Some common types of plagiarism
Plagiarism is the theft of words and ideas from someone else and using them as your own.
Perhaps you find a great review of the latest Parlotones CD on the Web. It would be ideal for your blog. No problem. You simply cut and paste and put it on your Web-site. You do not credit the author or the source.
Perhaps an article available on the Web would be perfect to complement the range of products that you sell. Simply copy the article and paste it on your site. No one is credited with having written the article.
You are participating in an online discussion about cloud computing. You want to sound intelligent, but have no ideas of your own. You search the Web for suitable material and find it on Helium.com. Three consecutive paragraphs will put forward an illustration of some great ideas. You simply copy and past the three paragraphs as your own contribution!
You eavesdrop on a band practising a new original song. The song is really great and would suit your own band. You secretly take a recording, bring the music to your band and take all the credit.
Found a piece of information that would be perfect for your latest economics assignment? Just copy and paste and claim it as your own. Who will know?
Some copy a paragraph or two. Others copy the entire article. Some simply paste the copied material on their site. Others put their own name to it.
What plagiarism is not
I find an inspiring article by Dissol on My Digital Life. I copy a paragraph, paste it into my post in quotation marks. I credit Dissol as the author and site the source (preferably) with a link back to the original.
I ask permission of an author to reproduce an article in full. Having obtained permission, I reproduce the piece on my own site clearly stating the author, the source and that the article is reproduced with permission.
I get permission from the composer to use a song he has written rather than claiming it as my own.
The consequences of plagiarism
Plagiarism is a serious offence and when prosecuted successfully can lead to severe penalties.
Most universities routinely check every assignment for plagiarism. When identified, the student risks losing all credits towards the degree he or she is studying towards. On a post-graduate degree it could place undergraduate degrees at risk! The student may even be barred from further study.
Google provides a facility to block plagiarists from search engines. You have to produce solid evidence. Links to sites or material by the plagiariser are diverted to a message that shows the person or site as a plagiarist.
Legal consequences of perjury can include monetary and legal penalties including imprisonment. Plagiarism places not only the offender at risk. It could even place the publisher at risk. For instance, a blogger that cuts and pastes someone else's work and claims it as his own on MyDL can place MyDL at risk as well as him or her self.
How to avoid plagiarism
Avoiding plagiarism is quite simple. If you are a student, you are supposed to use your brain. If you are relying on stolen information, then you may as well give up right now.
You are always allowed to quote other sources! Use quotation marks to show what you have quoted and give the name of the author and a link to the source (online) or the name of the book or journal (off-line).
If you really want people to read the whole article, add a link to the article in your post. A common practice is to copy and paste the title, the author's name and the first paragraph followed by a link to the original.
If you really must copy the entire article, then you must include the title, the author's name and the source. Also state whether you have obtained permission to republish or not. If you publish without permission but credit the author, then you may be violating copyright laws. You won't be guilty of plagiarism.
By the way, simply paraphrasing an article is not enough. Plagiarism applies to using another person's ideas without crediting the source.
Most plagiarists copy and paste from the Web. This makes it fairly easy to trace and catch them. There are many tools available to identify plagiarism - some of them are free.
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written by barrmar, October 02, 2010
References and links on an online site add credibility to you and your site as well as increasing your Google ranking.
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written by OS GIKEN, October 03, 2010
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written by barrmar, October 03, 2010
The post (above) explains what plagiarism is and isn't. You obviously have not read the post! If you had, you would not have made this nonsensical statement: "Your previous blog about it stated you have an issue with it...but we both don't have an issue with it should it be to our benefit...which in most cases...it is."
If someone steal your car how does it benefit you? If someone steals your blog and claims it as his/her own, how does it benefit you!?!
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written by Dissol, October 03, 2010
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written by Twar, October 04, 2010
Do you mean that you have to come up with completely original work as student? Or that you simply have to use your brain to not plagiarise?
If its the first - I don't agree. Even though the majority of your work should be original, you have to have valid sources to back your work up. Unless you are post grad at a university in which case you have to produce new knowledge. But even then you will need to back up your work by referencing previous knowledge or lack thereof from reliable sources.
If its the second - Everyone has to use their brain not to plagiarise. It is not specific to students.
Avoiding plagiarism is all about referencing properly. In the blogging world references can be done in a sloppy way such as just linking the source and naming the author, but for work or research purposes, when you write a formal paper, referencing has to be done in a professional way. There are several systems worked out for how to reference on which you can read up any specific type of reference, like the Harvard system for example. You have to do in text referencing and include an entire references section to your paper. There are set ways to reference pictures, online articles, books and so forth. Its very specific and you have to stick to one system of referencing in your paper.
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written by OS GIKEN, October 04, 2010
Barmar, this has happened to you, it must be crap...but let's look at it from my perspective now...assuming someone stole your blog, and it happened to generate R10 000 in hits for you in a matter or 3 weeks due to this person promoting the CRAP out of your blog but the hits still came back to MyDL and they recorded it as genuine hits and you now have R10 000 to claim...tell me please, in your infinate wisdom...how does this NOT benefit you?
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written by Twar, October 04, 2010
If they steal your blog and use it as their own, and then generate the crap out of your original blog causing you to get hits, it would mean one thing:
The person who did this is a complete and utter idiot.
And if you make a lot of money off of his stupidity, that would be great.
But the whole concept of plagiarism means that your original work is never mentioned or linked in any way. Which makes promoting your blog and STILL committing plagiarism pretty damn hard.
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written by AbortRetryFail, October 04, 2010
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written by Twar, October 04, 2010
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written by barrmar, October 04, 2010
If someone copies a an article or a blog or a portion of these with a link to the original, IT IS NOT PLAGIARISM!!!!!
Consider these
Scenario 1 - Plagiarism: you write a novel. Fred X steals your manuscript and publishes it under his own name - Fred X. There is no benefit to you at all as Fred claims that he has written the piece and earns all the royalties from it.
Scenario 2 - NOT plagiarism: John Y finds your novel on the Web. He is impressed and copies a few paragraphs into his blog. He includes a review of your novel and a link back to the original. The link may benefit you greatly. The difference is that John has quoted the source. He does not pretend to have written your work.
In these scenarios, Fred X has plagiarised your work. John Y has not plagiarised you!
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written by OS GIKEN, October 04, 2010
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written by Twar, October 04, 2010
If it links back to Barrmar's blog, then its not plagiarism.
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written by OS GIKEN, October 05, 2010
1. You blog.
2. Someone writes a blog somewhere in the world, and copies your entire content but he's stupid so he links it...i.e, he writes his stuff,and then links your blog as well claiming its his. Lets not dispute how or why.
3.His blog, containing your link to your blog gets you R10 000 indirectly, he doesn't even know...
4.You log onto the MyDL and go straigt to your hits like you do..lol, and see you got R10 000 to claim.
5. Now, Barmar, you benefit!
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written by Twar, October 05, 2010
Os you are creating a very unrealistic situation. I've never met anyone stupid enough to do what you just described.
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written by barrmar, October 05, 2010
How do you accidentally insert a link to the place where you stole the article?
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written by AbortRetryFail, October 05, 2010
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written by Twar, October 05, 2010
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written by OS GIKEN, October 06, 2010
Plagiarists are in nature dumb...if there's thought that goes into stealing Barrmar's work, there is enough thought to create your own. THus, stealing means...write something barmar said and then unknowingly use barrmar's article as a refference lol...
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written by barrmar, October 06, 2010
I don't quite get the mechanism! If you cut and paste my work there will not be a reference to the original - unless you deliberately add it!
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As you point out, the concept is simple - and I enjoy reading a post which does contain references and links, as it shows the author has done some work. (well, this falls flat, when all the links are referencing to the same site...as then it tends to be weaker).
I think too, you miss another point. If one is earning money from blogging (less so on MyDL, given the odd way hits are being counted...again!), then one way that you can increase your worth to potential clients, is to be able to show not just a long list of original work...but it helps if your work is referenced elsewhere.
This is even more key when writing for scientific journals. It is very hard to get a piece published, but the aim is to have an original piece of work, that extends the understanding of an issue. Science is competitive, and the work should provoke others to test the hypothesis, or to find the limits to the work. A good piece of work, that does stimulate this sort of reaction will be well referenced...and a history of producing work that is referenced by others does raise one's status, and improve the chances of future publishing.