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Plagiarism

To represent oneself as the author of some work that is in fact the work of someone else is to plagiarize. Plagiarism may include the “passing off” of the form of the work—for example, the exact words of a piece of writing—or the intellectual content, or both.

Plagiarism exists as a serious social problem within the halls of Western academia. Only exceptional circumstances bring plagiarism of someone outside of academia to public attention. Plagiarism is an ethical, not a legal, issue and it does not equate with the breaking of copyright or patents, though at times both may also involve plagiarism. The advent of the World Wide Web and vast electronic databases brought this issue to the fore within academic institutions, resulting in new methods of both plagiarism and detection. The global nature of the Web and the increase in transcultural education through the movement of students and scholars increased awareness of a cultural dimension to plagiarism.

Types of Plagiarism

The seriousness of plagiarism and its problematical nature rests on the likelihood that each instance is a deliberate act of deception. The simple definition of “passing off” therefore expands to consideration of how the material was “passed off,” by whom, and for what purpose. Plagiarism thus falls into three main types, depending on the original author's level of awareness of intent to deceive.

Author is Aware of Deception

Work on Behalf. The author of the work gives or sells the original work to another who takes credit for it by appending his or her own name. The most common example is the college “paper-mill” Web sites on which a student purchases an essay that someone else sold to it for the purpose of their reselling the work online. A different example is that of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who engaged someone to paint pictures that she then signed and sold at a charity auction. In both instances the intention is to deceive deliberately, with both form and content plagiarized.

Collusion. Collusion occurs when the author of the intellectual content and sometimes the form of presentation of that content is part of a group who exchange ideas and information. Another member of the group presents the entire work as if all of it were that person's own. One example would be students getting together to discuss an assignment intended to be an individual assignment. They each write up the assignment on their own but use each other's ideas. The intent may or may not be to deceive deliberately. In such cases, content is always plagiarized, though form may not be.

Author is Unaware of Deception

Cut and Paste. An individual, in this instance, copies the form containing the intellectual content without acknowledging the original author's form, content, or both, and consequently gives the impression of ownership of form, content, or both. One such example is the cutting and pasting of a paragraph from a Web site into an essay or article without acknowledging the original source. Another example is historian Steven Ambrose's failure to use quotation marks in some stories that gave the impression he was the author of the form of the story even where he had acknowledged the author of the content.

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