Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined in the English Oxford Dictionary as “the action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft.” Thus, the copying and pasting of someone else’s literary work and feigning it as my own for journals is unacceptable and against the University of California, Los Angeles policy. There is a zero tolerance for plagiarism at UCLA, which is considered a form of cheating. The etymology of the word, “plagiarism” begins in the first century, with the Latin word plagiarius (literally meaning kidnapper). It was used to denote someone stealing someone else’s work, and was first pioneered by the Roman poet Martial, who complained that another poet had literally “kidnapped his verses.” Ben Jonson, the famous English dramatist and poet introduced the word into the English language in 1601 to describe a plagiary as someone guilty of literary theft. Then the derived form plagiarism was introduced into English around 1620 and the Latin root is based on the Indo-European root, plak, meaning, “to weave.” Interestingly, plagiarism is a concept that does not exist in the legal sense despite being considered theft or stealing. It is not mentioned in any current statute, either criminal or civil law. However, some cases may be treated as unfair competition or a violation of the doctrine of moral rights. Along with the increased availability of intellectual property due to the rise in technology, the concept of copyright and its offences has been debated as deserving a criminal offense label. Yet, plagiarism is not equal to copyright infringement. While both terms may apply to a particular act, they are two different concepts. Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of a copyright holder, when material restricted by copyright is used without consent. This, of course, assumes the pretext that said material is copyrighted and belong so a certain owner. On the other hand, plagiarism is a moral concept concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarizing author’s reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship. The work need not be officially or governmentally copyrighted to be properly plagiarized. Thus, plagiarism is not illegal towards the author, but toward the reader. Even when copyright is expired or simply does not apply or exist, false claims of authorship may still constitute plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined in varying ways in higher education institutions and universities. For example, Stanford University defines it as the “use, without giving reasonable an appropriate credit to or acknowledging the author or source, of another person’s original work, whether such work is made up of code, formulas, ideas, language, research , strategies, writing or other form.” Yale, on the other hand, view it as the “use of another's work, words, or ideas without attribution" which includes "using a source's language without quoting, using information from a source without attribution, and paraphrasing a source in a form that stays too close to the original." Princeton defines it as the “deliberate” use of “someone else's language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source." Oxford University in London, United Kingdom characterizes plagiarism as the use of “a writer’s ideas or phraseology without giving due credit.” Finally, Brown University defines it to be “appropriating another person's ideas or words (spoken or written) without attributing those word or ideas to their true source." Within academia, plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty or fraud and offenders are subject to appropriate punishment, and in some cases expulsion. Some individuals who are caught plagiarizing claim to be unaware of their fault and attempt to justify their actions as unintentional. During modern times, plagiarizing has become increasingly frequent in the classroom due to the widespread use of the internet and the easy access to unlimited information.

Works Cited

"Plagiarism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 May 2013. Web. 15 May 2013.
"Discover the Story of EnglishMore than 600,000 Words, over a Thousand Years." Home : Oxford English Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2013.