Home > Plagiarism

1 Definition

There is some difference of opinion over how much credit must be given when preparing a newspaper article or historical account. Generally, reference is made to original source material as much as possible, and writers avoid taking credit for others' work.

The use of mere facts, rather than works of creative expression, does not constitute plagiarism. It does not matter whether the facts come from public domain or copyrighted works. In fact, 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 this kind of academic dishonesty, as many students claim that if an action is legal, it must be ethical. This is untrue. Most such institutions have academic codes of ethics which prohibit all forms of plagiarism, whether the idea is plagiarized from public domain or copyrighted sources.

Similarly, it is plagiarism to steal the specifics of someone else's novel idea, and then present it as one's own work. This type of plagiarism is rampant in high schools, colleges and universities, when students illicitly use the analyses in " Cliffs Notes", and falsely present them as being their own original analysis. A small market has emerged of web sites offering essays and papers for sale to students, while a counter-industry has developed of companies offering services for instructors to compare student's papers to a database of sources and search for potential plagiarism.

According to some academic ethics codes and criminal laws, a complaint of plagiarism may be initiated or proven by any person. The person originating the complaint need not be the owner of the plagiarized content, nor need there be any active or passive communication from a content owner directing that any investigation or discipline process be initiated in response to the plagiarism.

It is not plagiarism when two (or more) people independently come up with the same idea or analysis.

There is also accidental plagiarism. 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.

2 Famous examples of plagiarism

• Helen KellerHelen Adams Keller ( June 27, 1880 June 1, 1968) was a blind and deaf American author, activist and lecturer. She was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and her disabilities were caused by a fever when she was 19 months old. The lively child changed into a littl was accused of plagiarism as a young girl for a school composition. Mortified, she determined to have all future compositions screened by her friends before submission.
• George HarrisonNote: This article is about the Beatle George Harrison. For the early twentieth century singer, see Clinton Ford. George Harrison MBE ( February 25, 1943 November 29, 2001) was a popular British songwriter, musician and film producer best known as a membe was successfully sued for plagiarizing (though perhaps unconsciously) the Chiffons' "He's So Fine" for the melody of his own "My Sweet Lord".[1]
• Senator Joseph Biden was forced to withdraw from the 1988 Democratic Presidential nominationsPresidential CandidateElectoral Vote Popular Vote Pct Party Running Mate(Electoral Votes) George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas (W) 426 48,882,808 53. 4% Republican James Danforth Quayle III of Indiana (426) Michael Stanley Dukakis of Massachusetts 111 41,8 when it was revealed he had failed a course in law school due to plagiarism. It was also shown that he had plagiarised several campaign speeches, notably those of British Labour leader Neil KinnockThe Right Honourable Neil Kinnock (born March 28, 1942) is a British politician. He was the leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992, when he resigned after the general election defeat. He was succeeded by John Smith. Career Overview First elected in and Senator Robert F. KennedyRobert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy also called RFK ( November 20, 1925 June 6, 1968) was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, and was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration. He worked closely with his brother during t.[2]
• Popular historian Stephen AmbroseStephen Edward Ambrose ( January 10, 1936 October 13, 2002) was a popular historian and biographer of Dwight Eisenhower. He had a Ph. D in History from the University of Wisconsin and taught history at the University of New Orleans from 1960 until his ret has been criticized for incorporating passages from the works of other authors into many of his books.
• Psychology professor René Diekstra , also well-known as author of popular books, left Leiden University in 1997 after accusations of plagiarism. Procedures are on-going in 2003, in which Diekstra fights a report about him on this matter.
• Alex Haley was permitted to settle out-of-court for $650,000, having admitted that he copied large passages of his novel Roots from The African by Harold Courlander.
• Eres tu, Spanish song at the Eurovision Song Contest 1973 was a plagiarism of Slovenian (then Yugoslav) song from ESC 1966 (Berta Ambrož: Brez Besed) but due to political reasons ( Cold War) it wasn't disqualified.