Is stealing Your speech entirely from another source and passing it off as your own?

Summary

Plagiarism involves the act of using others’ work and trying to pass it off as your own original work. Essentially, plagiarism is stealing another person’s work or ideas. It can occur intentionally and unintentionally. Students should know how to document their sources and that is called placing a citation in their work. When you understand how to cite sources and when you paraphrase information and cite the source, these steps help reduce plagiarism. Students should complete their own work in class and keep a record of sources to avoid plagiarism. When writing essays and citing sources, you should put the citation in the essay and on the reference page to avoid plagiarism.

3.3.1 Plagiarism and Duplication

Plagiarism is defined as “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit” (http://www.ori.dhhs.gov/definition-misconduct/), while duplicate publication is defined as an article that substantially duplicates another article without acknowledgment, where the articles have one or more authors in common (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/errara.html).

COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics http://www.publicationethics.org.uk) was established in 1997 as a forum for publishers and editors. It provides help on ethical issues such as conflicts of interest, data falsification and manipulation, plagiarism, unethical experiments, priority disputes, and so on. Publishers united themselves in CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org) for the development of new technologies leading to faster publication and easier submissions. CrossRef is also responsible for CrossCheck, a software program to detect plagiarism, used by member publishers. Some publishers have their own services for imposing ethic behavioral, such as Elsevier’s PERK (Publishing Ethics Resource Kit). Moreover, most universities use special software to detect plagiarism in theses.

Yet, duplication detection software such as CrossCheck should be an aid to human judgment, not a substitute for it. Human judgment should decide if copying methods sections almost verbatim is acceptable and within the domain of “fair use” (Samuelson, 1994). Zhang (2010) in a discussion of and introduction to CrossCheck seems to judge that copying from methods is rarely acceptable. The same diligence applies to republishing conference articles with little or no new facts or aspects, and to so-called self-plagiarism, discussed further on.

Chaddah (2014) makes a distinction among three types of plagiarism: text plagiarism (copying parts of an article without citing it), idea plagiarism (using someone else’s idea or hypothesis, again without crediting the original source), and finally results plagiarism. In the last case, research has been done but presented as original instead of a replication and verification. He notices that plagiarism is not fraud, in which case data are fabricated or unfavorable outcomes removed from the results. He observes that in each of the events of plagiarism, papers should not be retracted, as they are scientifically correct, but a correction must be published giving credit where credit is due, and directly linked to the original paper and this in such a way that every download of the original paper automatically includes the correction. Idea plagiarism may occur accidentally, in the sense that one thinks that an idea is one’s own, but it actually is someone else’s. This may happen because one has not carefully checked the existing literature or even because one has heard or read about it, but forgot that one had, so-called cryptomnesia (Macrae et al., 1999).

So-called self-plagiarism is a delicate matter. Leaving purely legal aspects aside (for which we refer to Samuelson, 1994), we note that some colleagues place it on the same level as other forms of plagiarism, while others state that self-plagiarism does not exist. Of course, as pointed out by Chrousos et al. (2012) and by Cronin (2013) one cannot steal ideas from oneself, so linguistically the term “self-plagiarism” is an oxymoron. However, when re-using one’s own material proper reference must always be given. It is unethical to claim ideas of others, and it is unethical to give the impression that one presents an idea for the first time when this is not the case. This corresponds to the definition stated at the beginning of this section. According to Errami and Garner (2008) duplication, duplicate submission and repeated publication (self-plagiarism) are clearly on the rise. As such they urge journal publishers to use automated means to detect duplicate publications.

Re-publishing parts of one’s work often happens when an article published as part of conference proceedings is later published as a journal article. As conference proceedings play an important role in engineering and computer science this point was investigated by Zhang and Jia (2013). They found that in this field most editors were willing to accept submissions derived from a conference paper provided that a substantial amount of the content had been changed (usually expanded). Concretely, they often required 30% new content, but some even went as far as 75% new content. Moreover, such submissions were again submitted to peer review. So, although a software tool such as CrossCheck would signal a large overlap in content, this is not considered self-plagiarism. That said, writing in a repetitive style is usually not good for one’s reputation, unless one addresses a totally different audience.

Duplicate publication, in the sense of publishing the same article twice, is another matter. Duplicate publication is only allowed with full permission of the publisher of the first version.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an issue that appears so simple and obvious that it may not merit treatment in a journal’s policies. After all, authors should know not to plagiarize others’ work, and if they intentionally do so, a journal’s policy is not likely to stop them. However, there is a subtle form of plagiarism of which some authors may be unaware: self-plagiarism. While the theft and presentation of others’ work as one’s own (plagiarism) is a well-defined act, the idea of self-plagiarism is less well defined. It is usually understood in terms of “duplicate publication” (discussed later in this chapter) or “text recycling” (Roig, 2011; Scanlon, 2007). Text recycling is exactly what it sounds like – reusing one’s own words without appropriate attribution to their original source. To a certain extent, this practice is unavoidable and somewhat subconscious, particularly for authors who write repeatedly on specific topics (Scanlon, 2007). However, a journal should provide guidance to authors as to what forms of recycling are acceptable (or not), and when an author is required to properly cite his or her prior work. For example, a relatively simple distinction could be made between unpublished work (e.g., grant proposals) and published work, with a journal allowing reuse (without citation) of unpublished materials, but requiring self-citation for any previously published articles (Roig, 2011). However, with increasing amounts of informal and unpublished work being deposited in institutional repositories, a journal may wish to consider adding even more nuance to its policy – for example, requiring citation of any publicly available work, whether it has been formally published or not.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, regarded as a particular type of cheating, is among the most common forms of academic misconduct. Essentially, it involves the use of intellectual property (e.g., words, constructs, inventions, or ideas) without proper acknowledgment, giving others the false impression that it is original work (Office of Research Integrity, 2009). A good working definition can be found in Elsevier (2012): “Plagiarism is the passing off of another’s work as one’s own. In its simplest form, plagiarism may be verbatim copying, but paraphrasing of text, tables, figures or even ideas without proper citation also constitutes an infringement.”4

ETHICAL DISPOSITION

Cheating is unethical because it is dishonest, misrepresents accomplishment and ability, and suggests an overall disinterest in doing the work required to meet academic objectives.

Although a straightforward concept, plagiarism is defined and treated differently by every institution. It is therefore useful to mention a few of its many different manifestations, some of which were mentioned in the previous section.

Plagiarism of authorship involves placing one’s own name on the completed work of another without significant alteration (if any). An example would be purchasing a research paper online and submitting it for course credit as one’s own original work.

Direct plagiarism involves the exact reproduction of published work without any attribution of its original source. An example would be the absence of internal references and quotations around language that has been reproduced verbatim from another source.

Paraphrasing is a form of plagiarism that involves reproducing the work of others while changing the precise language of the original source only slightly and then failing to acknowledge the original source.

Self-plagiarism (a.k.a. “double dipping”) refers to the practice of submitting the same work product (e.g., a research paper or project) or one that is only slightly altered, to satisfy the requirements of multiple separate courses.5 This provides the illusion that more work has been completed in order to satisfy university requirements for assignments or publication.

Each of these manifestations of plagiarism involves a deliberate attempt to mislead others as to the authorship and originality of words, constructs, inventions, or ideas. However, some institutions have more rigid plagiarism guidelines; academic sloppiness or laziness can evidence sufficient recklessness and negligence to incur a violation. For example, some institutions do not require the intent to deceive, only improper or incomplete citation. Others forbid the use of any quotations or ideas referenced from secondary sources; this requires students to research and confirm any quoted material or idea from its primary source.6 Whatever the precise institutional requirements, students are admonished to seek them out and abide accordingly.

ETHICAL DISPOSITION

Plagiarism is unethical because it is dishonest; it misrepresents the amount of time and effort that was put into research and writing; and it subsequently misrepresents research and writing ability. It also suggests an overall disinterest, or an inability, with respect to the research and writing that is required to complete assigned work.

Crowder’s Comments

Policy v. Reality

Ironically, the first time that I encountered plagiarism, I was an adjunct professor teaching my first criminal justice ethics course. I even didn’t know that this student’s research paper was plagiarized until I typed a line from it into a search engine and the whole article came up from another source – almost word for word. At that point, I suspected that I would probably have to give her an “F” on the assignment because of my limited understanding of University policy. But here’s the thing – there is a difference between policy and the reality of implementing that policy. That difference is politics – for any number of reasons, there are students that get treated differently by those with the burden of command and I was probably concerned that this might be one of those. But mostly, I knew that I didn’t know everything about University policy. And I wanted to have my bases covered in case the student challenged my decision. So, essentially lacking the confidence to make this potentially messy political decision on my own, I got in touch with my department chair and laid it all out for her. She advised me that not only should the student flunk the assignment, but that she should also flunk the whole course. I couldn’t have agreed more. Knowing that I had that kind of strong ethical support within my academic chain of command was immediately gratifying, and also crucial to my professional development.

Academic honesty and plagiarism

Plagiarism is 12commonly associated with cheating. However, most plagiarism is not the result of cheating. Rather, it is the result of a lack of knowledge of how to properly document a source and how to distinguish between what information is borrowed from another source and that which is original to you, the author. While this lack of knowledge of how to cite sources properly is still plagiarism, it is called unintentional plagiarism and is not as serious an offense as deliberately stealing information from another source.13

Consider the following paragraph:

In ‘Real Old Time T’ing,’ code-switching from Jamaican Creole to Jamaican Standard English is done for the following four reasons: (1) to reflect Patricia’s change in social class; (2) to reflect Papa Sterling’s need to convey his higher status as a parent to his daughter Patricia; (3) to make fun of Patricia’s middle-class ideas that a bigger home is a better home; and (4) to reflect the element of formality involved in speech-making.

The above paragraph is obviously plagiarized because no source and no page numbers were given. However, what if the paragraph were rewritten in the following way:

In ‘Real Old Time T’ing,’ the characters code-switch from Jamaican Creole to Jamaican Standard English for the following reasons: (1) to note Patricia’s change in status from lower to middle class; (2) to reflect Papa Sterling’s need to convey to his daughter his higher status as her father; (3) to make fun of Patricia’s new middle-class ideas of a larger home being the best home; and (4) to convey the element of formality involved in making a speech.

Is the above paragraph plagiarized? Yes, it definitely is. The above paragraph still maintains much of the sentence structure and vocabulary of the original, with only minor changes made. Would it be plagiarism if you put (Wright, 1993) after it? Yes, it would. As aforementioned, the paragraph maintains much of the structure and vocabulary of the original. Thus, for it not to be plagiarism, the author’s last name, year of publication, and page number would need to be included. In addition, either quotation marks or a block quotation format (indenting the paragraph five spaces from the left margin) would need to be used when formatting quotations using the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Since the above paragraph is over 40 words, a block quotation format is needed:14

In ‘Real Old Time T’ing,’ the characters code-switch from Jamaican Creole to Jamaican Standard English for the following reasons: (1) to note Patricia’s change in status from lower to middle class; (2) to reflect Papa Sterling’s need to convey to his daughter his higher status as her father; (3) to make fun of Patricia’s new middle-class ideas of a larger home being the best home; and (4) to convey the element of formality involved in making a speech. (Wright, 1993: 25)

If the paragraph were rewritten in the following way, would it be plagiarism?

In ‘Real Old Time T’ing,’ Papa Sterling goes from using Jamaican Creole to Jamaican Standard English in order to convey to his daughter that he is the parent, to make fun of his daughter’s new fancy ideas, and to make a speech. His daughter Patricia codeswitches to reflect her rise from the lower to the middle class.

As the above paragraph is written, it would be plagiarism because there is no citation. While the paragraph has been successfully paraphrased, a citation needs to be included in order to give credit for the author’s ideas. Citing the paragraph as follows would make it acceptable and not plagiarized:

In ‘Real Old Time T’ing,’ Papa Sterling goes from using Jamaican Creole to Jamaican Standard English in order to convey to his daughter that he is the parent, to make fun of his daughter’s new fancy ideas, and to make a speech. His daughter Patricia code-switches to reflect her rise from the lower to the middle class. (Wright, 1993)15

No page number is needed because the paragraph is not a direct quote. Thus credit only needs to be given for the author’s ideas and not for her words.

Paraphrasing may be defined as using another person’s ideas and rewriting them in your own words. It differs from summarizing in that a summary is generally a shortened version of a paragraph or passage in which only the main ideas are given. A paraphrase, however, is generally the rewriting of the entire paragraph or passage in your own words.

Plagiarism and how to avoid it

Plagiarism is literary theft. It occurs when you do the following:

Copy material from books, the Web and other sources.

Quote any piece of information that is not common knowledge.

Use another person’s theory or opinion without crediting that person.

Lightly paraphrase (slightly reword) another person’s written or spoken words.

Examples

When you make a statement that your reader needs to know is valid, you must cite the source:

Wind energy is the world’s fastest growing energy source.

Who says so? Can your reader trust this information that you’ve given? Answer: The reader can only trust this information when you state from which source you got your material. You must therefore cite the source in your document and list it in your References section.

When you block-copy material from the Web or books without citing the source. Many students have block-copied web material for assignments, believing that their assessor will not notice it, or in ignorance of the fact that it shouldn’t be done. By doing this, you are implying that the material is your own. You need to (1) rewrite it (that is, paraphrase it) and (2) cite the source. Be careful: You should not just alter a few words here and there. To avoid plagiarism, you need to substantially rewrite it in your own words.

The following passage has been block-copied from the web page of the US Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Program web page (http://www.eren.doe.gov/wind/web.html).

What causes the wind to blow? Wind is a form of solar energy. Winds are caused by the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the irregularities of the earth’s surface, and rotation of the earth. Wind flow patterns are modified by the earth’s terrain, bodies of water, and vegetative cover. This wind flow, or motion energy, when “harvested” by modern wind turbines can be used to generate electricity.

Here’s an unacceptable paraphrase that is plagiarism:

Wind flow, or motion energy, when “harvested” by modern wind turbines can be used to generate electricity. What makes the wind blow? Wind, a form of solar energy, is caused by the uneven heating of the earth’s atmosphere by the sun, the earth’s irregular surface, and its rotation. Wind flow patterns are modified by the earth’s terrain, seas or large lakes, and vegetative cover.

Why is this passage plagiarism?

It is considered to be plagiarism for two reasons:

The writer has changed around only a few words and phrases, or changed the order of the original paragraph’s sentences.

The writer has failed to cite a source for any of the facts.

If you do either or both of these things, you are plagiarising.

Here is an acceptable paraphrase:

Wind has three causes: uneven heating of the earth’s atmosphere by the sun, the topography of the earth’s surface, and the earth’s rotation. Wind can be used to generate electricity; however, because flow patterns are modified by topography, oceans and the amount of plant cover, wind flow can be very variable [12].

Why is this passage acceptable?

This is acceptable paraphrasing because the writer does the following:

Accurately transmits the original information in a substantially rewritten form.

Cites the source of the information.

Downloading diagrams from the Web. Make sure that each of your diagrams in your report has its own figure number, a title of your own making (even if the diagram comes off the Web with its own title), and that the source is cited at the end of the title. For example:

Figure 4 Cost of wind-generated electricity, 1980–2005 [15]

For the citation conventions when copying, adapting or redrawing diagrams, see page 175, in this chapter.

If you need to quote something word for word, use the conventions for quotation marks (see page 186, in this chapter), and cite the source.

Plagiarism

The plagiarism policy (ways to avoid cheating and how to accurately represent others’ work used in your own) should consist of rules governing others’ work. An effective plagiarism policy should provide examples or provide a resource for examples on how to cite (document) websites and authors’ work when you use the material in your assignments. It should clearly mark the outcomes for students who plagiarize. You will learn more about plagiarism and citing sources in this textbook.

The academic research policy should explain plagiarism as well. It should explain types of website to avoid for research, such as Wikipedia for scholarly work, answers.com, and opinionated information that anyone can edit, when researching for essays and class assignments. It should provide information about the school’s library and educational journals. The academic research area should also include response guidelines to discussion questions, or there should be an area in class that explains discussion question response expectations. All these fall under a code of ethics and student expectations for in-school behaviour and should be addressed when you enroll in class. It should be part of the literature in the classroom or be an assignment, such as a scavenger hunt, so that you can search for this information. If not, and if you struggle with any of these or have questions regarding how to behave in class, then you should search for the information or ask your instructor about it. Following the code of ethics should not be taken lightly. It is more than a list of rules; it is exhibiting good patterns of behaviour throughout the entire course and your degree program.

Watch Out for Conflicts of Interest

Like plagiarism, blatant conflicts of interest are easily recognized. Trying to mix a personal relationship with a professional one or overlapping two professional activities can result in conflicts of interest. A personal or business relationship should not interfere with your work as a scientist and a professional. Business partnerships with an advisor who has some authority over your degree program or research are questionable, as is having close relatives serve on your graduate committee. Remember that there are no definitive rules: A father and daughter could become a highly ethical research team. But treat any possible conflict of interest with great caution. The scientist must avoid any personal bias in his or her judgments.

Plagiarism

Although the problem of plagiarism is prevalent in both print journals and e-journals, this problem becomes more acute in the case of e-journals because of the availability of the ‘Cut-Copy-Paste’ option of application software. Traditionally, plagiarism can be avoided by following pre-defined styles like the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style, Chicago Style or the American Psychological Association (APA) Style. In this technological era, various software and techniques (e.g. Stanford Copy Analysis Mechanism) have been adopted to minimize plagiarism.

6.4 How Do I Ethically Use This Information in My Work?

A recent Facebook trend involved account holders changing their profile pictures to a cartoon. Many Facebook users found and posted pictures of their favorite cartoon action heroes, for instance. The cartoon profile pictures helped the account holder make a personal statement and to feel part of a wider group of like-minded people, but nearly none attributed the source of the pictures posted. Technically, these postings could be said to have violated copyright and were, at a minimum, unethical because of the failure to recognize the work of another person(s).

Similarly, copyright breaches have been common in other popular digital contexts, including Pinterest and YouTube. While businesses, such as these, monitor participant activity for copyright issues, it is always possible for copyrighted content to slip through, if it is posted temporarily and removed when identified as breaching copyright. As a result, as users and creators of content, it is essential to be vigilant in the online environment.

Ensuring that you have behaved ethically with digital information can be a challenge. The first step toward ethical use is to acknowledge that information found on the Internet may be owned and covered by copyright legislation. While copyright legislation is common, different countries may have slightly different copyright restrictions; it is important to understand what is and what is not considered to be permitted use in your region. In general, copyright usually allows university students to use copyrighted materials for their own education and research purposes. However, photocopying or downloading the text of entire books, for instance, is usually not permitted. Your university library most likely has paid subscriptions to e-books and journals, and the terms of subscription agreements allow for the downloading of a set amount of material. The full text of a journal article may be downloaded; however, e-books may permit users to download or print only a set number of pages per visit. It is essential that you familiarize yourself with copyright and publishers’ restrictions around the use of materials. You, as an individual student, are responsible for abiding by copyright.

Once you have located content for assessment, you must ensure that you use that material ethically. Plagiarism—that is, using another person’s ideas or their work without attribution—is a constant problem in the university environment. Universities invest significant time and effort communicating to students the perils of plagiarism, yet this form of cheating continues to exist. Plagiarism may result in disciplinary action by the university, including loss of grades, removal from courses, and even expulsion from the institution. The stigma associated with plagiarism should be a strong deterrent from active cheating.

However, plagiarism can be unwittingly committed by students who amass materials and draw from these without appropriate attribution. To ensure that you do not plagiarize, take care with the following steps:

Add quotation marks “ ” to any text you copy.

Taking this step will remind you that you have downloaded or recorded material that must be appropriately attributed, if used.

Paraphrase content.

To paraphrase means to “express the meaning of (something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2015). Essentially, to paraphrase is to reword content in your own words. It is good practice to paraphrase content. This will help you think about and reflect on the message found in the material you have used.

Note complete reference details when you locate material.

Record the reference details with the content you find. By keeping this information together, there is less risk of forgetting that some content belongs to someone else. In addition, you will avoid the stressful scramble to locate references for a bibliography as your assessment deadline looms.

Take an antiplagiarism course.

Universities often offer some sort of training around the issue of plagiarism; for instance, the institution’s library may run workshops for students. Take advantage of this sort of help as soon as you register at the university. An antiplagiarism seminar will serve you well for your entire university career, and you may even be awarded credit for taking the course.

Adopt a referencing style.

First, check with your instructor for the referencing style used in your school or department, for example, APA (American Psychological Association), Chicago, Harvard, and MLA (Modern Language Association). Styles vary by discipline.

Second, once you know the referencing style you must use for assessment, ensure that you understand the peculiarities of that particular style. A reference normally requires information about the author, title, and source, but what other information might be needed? For a digital source, what information is needed about the e-location of that material? A style guide, either in hard copy or as information presented via the Internet, will be indispensable as you prepare citations in your text and a reference list for the end of your work. If you have questions, remember that your instructors or the staff in your university library will be able to assist you.