Let's get serious about plagiarism
- Editor's note: This article was first published in the Signpost in 2009. Written by several long-standing editors, including the late Adrianne Wadewitz, the article was subjected to extensive commentary and ultimately influenced the English Wikipedia's plagiarism guideline. With recent debates about close paraphrasing vis-à-vis plagiarism, we feel that this dispatch retains its relevance and deserves a second airing.
- Individuals interested in contributing their own featured content dispatch or opinion article should email the Signpost's editor-in-chief.
Plagiarism, as Wikipedia's article on the topic explains, "is the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work." At best it is intellectual sloppiness and at worst outright theft.[1] As Robin Levin Penslar notes in Research Ethics: Cases and Materials, "The real penalty for plagiarism is the abhorrence of the community of scholars."[2] It can bring a community into disrepute. Wikipedia's editors should create their own articles, not adopt the work of others. But while this is an easy approach to recommend, plagiarism may not be as simple as it first seems—it is often committed inadvertently. The best way to prevent plagiarism is to understand clearly what it is, how to avoid it, and how to address it when it appears.
- ^ Leight, David (1999). "Plagiarism as metaphor". In Buranen, Lise; Roy, Alice Myers (eds.). Perspectives on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World. Buffalo: SUNY Press. p. 221. ISBN 0791440796.
- ^ Penslar, Robin Levin (1995). Research ethics: cases and materials. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 148. ISBN 0253209064.