Plagiarism: Bad

There was a popular little poetic ditty when I was in college that began: Plagiarize, Let no one else's work evade your eyes, but plagiarize. Today plagiarism is still a huge problem on college campuses--and if you get caught copying someone else's work it could cost you your academic career. By the way, getting kicked out of college for cheating can also destroy your chances at good job--who wants to hire someone that steals? Nobody does.

Most of us know we shouldn't copy anyone else's work, but plagiarism.org reminds us that there are many forms of plagiarism:
Sources Not Cited

1. "The Ghost Writer"
   The writer turns in another's work, word-for-word, as his or her own.
2. "The Photocopy"
   The writer copies significant portions of text straight from a single source, without alteration.
3. "The Potluck Paper"
   The writer tries to disguise plagiarism by copying from several different sources, tweaking the sentences to make them fit together while retaining most of the original phrasing.
4. "The Poor Disguise"
   Although the writer has retained the essential content of the source, he or she has altered the paper's appearance slightly by changing key words and phrases. 5. "The Labor of Laziness"
   The writer takes the time to paraphrase most of the paper from other sources and make it all fit together, instead of spending the same effort on original work.
6. "The Self-Stealer"
   The writer "borrows" generously from his or her previous work, violating policies concerning the expectation of originality adopted by most academic institutions.

Sources Cited (But Still Plagiarized)

7. "The Forgotten Footnote"
   The writer mentions an author's name for a source, but neglects to include specific information on the location of the material referenced. This often masks other forms of plagiarism by obscuring source locations.
8. "The Misinformer"
   The writer provides inaccurate information regarding the sources, making it impossible to find them.
9. "The Too-Perfect Paraphrase"
   The writer properly cites a source, but neglects to put in quotation marks text that has been copied word-for-word, or close to it. Although attributing the basic ideas to the source, the writer is falsely claiming original presentation and interpretation of the information.
10. "The Resourceful Citer"
   The writer properly cites all sources, paraphrasing and using quotations appropriately. The catch? The paper contains almost no original work! It is sometimes difficult to spot this form of plagiarism because it looks like any other well-researched document.
11. "The Perfect Crime"
   Well, we all know it doesn't exist. In this case, the writer properly quotes and cites sources in some places, but goes on to paraphrase other arguments from those sources without citation. This way, the writer tries to pass off the paraphrased material as his or her own analysis of the cited material.
I know some students are not aware of the various forms plagiarism can take, so be careful and shade your eyes, don't plagiarize!

Comments

  1. I never knew that there were so many stages of plagiarism, eleven to be exact. After reading this article and its content, I have found out that I have done two of the eleven, unknowingly but later corrected myself. For example, I have written papers recently and have forgotten the footnotes on rough drafts. Therefore I didn’t appropriately site my source, which is considered cheating in the writing/ citing rules. I’ve recently used this article and compared the different kinds of plagiarism with my current written work to make sure I haven’t fell into the definition of a plagiarizer. Lucky I’ve never fallen prey to the kind of sources that are not cited column of the list, just the poorly cited column.

    It’s always for your own benefit to do your own work and give credit to anyone’s ideas that you have used.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This article shows the eleven types of plagiarism and gives clear explanations. In the first paragraph, I deeply aware the seriousness of plagiarism. I also found that I sometimes use "The Self-Stealer" one, I never know this is a plagiarism before I read this article, because I thought using my own things will not affect the interests of others. This article clear that this violation the expectations of academic innovation, do something with my past work is no innovation at all, our learning is the need to constantly innovate and progress. I am glad I read this article today because if I get caught in the future, regrets are too late.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This article has changed my perspective on how i look at plagiarism. Before reading this article, i thought plagiarism only came in one form. After reading this article, it has brought to my attention there are eleven different types of plagiarism, some of which i never knew to be a form of plagiarism. For example "The Poor Disguise" I have committed before by changing the words in the sentence the original author wrote to my own liking. Thankfully this article has opened my eyes to all different types of plagiarism and I will now take precaution when writing papers. This article can be beneficial for all types of people to read from professors to students. The lesson this article taught me is to do your own work to avoid plagiarism.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This article talks about many ways of plagirism, and tells the audience how many people have used it to cheat on their papers. The one that I have noticed that many of students used the most in my classes was "The Self-stealer". I have known plenty of students that have used high school papers, and have tweaked them a little bit for their college papers.

    This article has also listed some ways of plagirism I was not aware of as well. Like the perfect crime type. I have never heard of anyone trying to do that to get by or even talk about that way of plagiarism.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I found this article helpful, because sometimes people may even plagiarise without even knowing. I didn't even know that you can not use the same essay for two different classes. You would think its not plagiarism since its your own essay, but it is. Proffesors should annouce this every once in a while because without being told you would never even know. So how much of the blame can be put on the students? Should the teacher be given some of the blame without explaining the rules of plagarism? Yet at the same time that may not be the case, for some student they just deliberately plagerise. Theres always two sides to every story.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Plagiarism is a major fear of mine. I’m terrified of accidentally plagiarizing. The consequences are major. I’m still learning how to properly do in text citations. I have this major fear because back in middle my English teacher dropped my grade two letter grades because she felt my poems where well above my level. She didn’t know that my father spent a major part of my life discussing a wide range of topics with me at a very young age. Therefore these topics that were well above my level, I had actually spent a great deal of time discussing them on a level that was well above the level of the average middle school student. Needless to say I was devastated that I had been wrongly accused of plagiarizing. This article was helpful because it gives different examples of ways to plagiarism.

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  7. This article had me cracking up silently in this computer lab. What I got such a kick from was how the article was giving names to the different types of plagiarizers there are when it comes to college. It was almost like it was making fun of the people who plagiarize and how easy it is to see when plagiarism is used. For example, "The Poor Disguise" gives an negative denotation. It really just makes the plagiarizer look stupid. One that was really funny to me was the one entitled "The Potluck Paper" because of its unique name and truth. I remember when I was a freshman in high school and would search the internet for information on a book for a book report and was luckily saved by my parents before I turned the report in. Could have gotten into a lot of trouble from the very start of my high school career. So this kind of plagiarizing "The Potluck Paper" made me laugh because of how it reminded me of myself in high school.

    Not only is this funny but it is also helpful to students. It is even more useful because it provides a laugh and laughs are good.

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  8. This was hilarious to me because I really thought there was only one type of plagiarism and that was 1) The Ghost Writer. It's crazy to know that a simple mistake as in not including quotation marks, can be considered plagiarism. Some of these I've done in high school not knowing at all it was plagiarism. I've never gotten taught the other forms of plagiarism, so if I ever have done it, it was very unintentional.

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  9. Plagiarism most of the time s very unintentional. I did not know there were different types of plagiarism. "the poor disguise" form was very funny to me because it makes it seem like the writter was disguising his work. plagiarism is a very big deal in college, for many people do it unintentionally. I have learned recently the correct way to cite my sources and I feel very educated and have more confidence in my papers. I do not want to run into the trouble of getting caught plagiarizing and getting kicked out of school for one simple mistake.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I find this article on plagiarism to be very interesting and resourceful to the young writer or college student. Plagiarism is a huge issue among people ranging from middle school to business associates. I sometimes fear that I could be copied for my ideas or I could accidentally steal an idea from a professional or fellow classmate. I also would like to thank whoever wrote this blog for allowing me to understand the different aspects of plagiarism. I would rather make proper citation of my sources than get kicked out of the school I’m attending and ruin my chances in a good career.

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  11. This article was alarming, I was aware that plagiarism is bad and it is a huge issue when it comes to students especially those in college. I was aware that plagiarism is steeling other peoples work and using it as your own but what I found interesting was the many names they have for different types of plagiarisms, some I wasn't even aware it counted as stealing from other peoples work. I fond this article helpful because now I am aware of the many types of plagiarisms and as a college student helps me be more careful of the things I am going to write to avoid this issue and prevent from getting kicked out of the university and continue to strive for my future career.

    ReplyDelete
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  13. If you wants to avoid plagiarism then follow this blog. Exactly, some students don't know about various form of plagiarism. So be careful. Our link is here www.personalstatementwriter.org/occupational-therapy-personal-statement/

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