Laurence Boxer

On Plagiarism

In February, '93, I posted the following essay on Niagara's electronic bulletin board.

An important issue of academic honesty is proper citation of quoted material; failure to credit the original author is plagiarism. Plagiarism is something all students should know about. It is easy to avoid. It may be very costly to be involved in such a crime.

Plagiarism found in your professional work may get you sued for large sums of $ -- perhaps millions. Plagiarism found in your student work may get you a severe penalty for violation of University policies concerning academic honesty. The following statement is found on p. 192 of the Niagara University Undergraduate Catalog for 1992-94 (and notice how I avoid plagiarism by citing the source of the quotation):

"Plagiarism is the presentation of ideas, words, and opinions of someone else as one's own work. The offense does not extend solely to directly quoted material presented without documentation. Paraphrased material, even if rendered into the student's own words, must be attributed to the originator of the thought. Furthermore, if the student adopts a line of reasoning or a point of view adapted or derived from the work of another, such adoption or derivation must also be properly acknowledged."

Plagiarism, at best, represents laziness: failure to think an idea through even to the extent of using one's own words to express another's idea; failure to engage in critical thinking, even when you agree with the original view of an author; satisfaction in regurgitation of a text. Laziness of this sort reflects satisfaction with mediocrity; even if the plagiarism is undetected by your grader, you mark yourself as incapable of originality, unable to express yourself, and unwilling to develop within yourself skills and character traits that would enhance your professional and personal development. At worst, plagiarism is theft and deceit: theft of an idea, theft of credit for an idea, theft of the expression of an idea, misrepresentation of your own effort's originality, misrepresentation of your own efforts in critical thinking, misrepresentation of the originality of your own expression. College students should be cultivating their own abilities in critical thinking, expression, and learning appropriate methods of problem solving. Plagiarism works against all of these goals, hence undermines much of the fundamental value of a college education.

It often happens that a student is asked to write a description of something that is widely understood and much-written about. For example, you might be asked to write about word processing. Now, since few of us have much original to say about word processing, it's likely that whatever you wish to say has already been said by someone else. Let us therefore consider examples of both foolish and wise behavior.

An example of foolish behavior would be a student whose essay on word processing consists entirely of the following:

"Word processing gives us the ability to prepare and revise letters, memos, reports, and other documents. At school we can use word processing to prepare laboratory reports, to write themes or research papers, and to prepare memos. In business, word processing is widely used for the preparation and revision of written communication, such as reports, proposals, and presentations."

Keep in mind that our premise is that the above is the student's entire essay. What's wrong with it? Certainly, nothing factual. BUT IT'S PLAGIARIZED: this material appears on p. 11 of The Student Edition of Framework II, by Donald H. Beil, and the paragraph above makes no mention of that fact.

WHEN IT IS APPROPRIATE to quote, the above would be better presented as follows:

As D.H. Beil explains in The Student Edition of Framework II (p. 11):

Word processing gives us the ability to prepare and revise letters, .... In business, ... and presentations.

Do you see how easy it is to do things properly? All that was required was the insertion of a simple statement that credits the original author of the words quoted. A more formal method, suitable for research papers, would make use of a format such as:

As stated in [Beil, p. 11]:

Word processing gives us .... In business, ... and presentations.

References

[Beil] Beil, D.H., The Student Edition of Framework II, Addison- Wesley Publishing, Reading, Mass., 1989

When a quote is appropriate, it represents research (that's good) provided the source of the quote is given. When the source of the quote is not given, that's plagiarism.

Sometimes, even quoting with credit to the author is inappropriate, as your own expression may be called for. In this case, the wise student writes, instead, something like the following:

Word processing lets one use a computer as if it were a typewriter for the preparation of all manner of printed documents. However, word processing has many advantages over the use of a traditional typewriter. Among these advantages are ....

What about paraphrasing? Sometimes it's appropriate, and, as the quote from the NU Catalog above shows, sometimes it's plagiarism. If you rephrase ideas that you have read, and these ideas do not originate in your reading material, then paraphrasing without citing your reading may be appropriate; for example, the paragraph preceding this one need not cite the Beil book. On the other hand, if you derive your own ideas from a ground-breaking paper, then even if you rephrase, you should still cite the source of your ideas. For example, if your notions of word processing come from having read the paper in which the phrase "word processing" was first defined and explained, then you should give credit to that paper as the source of your thinking.

When you use an idea that's not your own and that can be identified as coming from a specific source, credit the source, whether you have quoted or rephrased. That's a valid and important research method. Failure to attribute such credit is plagiarism. That's an immoral act of theft and deceit. All students should learn the difference.

Post Script

Since I wrote the above, another form of plagiarism has become prominent: students turning in copies of their classmates' computer files. That is, student A copies a computer file belonging to student B, then A submits the file for a grade as his/her own work. One student caught in the act said, "I didn't think it was a big deal." Well, it's a very big deal. Don't do it. See the Niagara University Undergraduate Catalog entry for Academic Honesty, particularly the Penalties subsection, to see how big a deal it is.