Plagiarism

Why Worry About Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is an issue because:

• It has become prevalent in student work at an alarmingly increasing rate.
• It is against many institutions' honor codes, including The College of Wooster's (see The College of Wooster's "Code of Academic Integrity" in the Scot's Key, also on the Web at http://www.wooster.edu/policies/coai.pdf).
• It is important that students graduate from college with a full understanding of plagiarism in the "real world."

What is Plagiarism?

Following are a series of unique definitions of the words plagiarism and plagiarize from a variety of well-known, recognizable reference sources.

Definitions	Sources of the Definitions
Plagiarism
"the wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another." "A purloined idea, design, passage, or work."	Quoted from the Web Dictionary: OED Online:Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, URL: http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl, accessed 12/6/2000.
"The act or an instance of copying or stealing another's words or ideas and attributing them as one's own."	Quoted from this famous legal dictionary: Black, Henry Campbell. Black's Law Dictionary. 7th ed. Bryan A. Garner, Editor in Chief. St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1999.
"The act or appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one's own creation." "Plagiarism is THEFT of another person's writings or ideas. .... Plagiarism is not a legal term; however, it is often used in lawsuits. Courts recognize acts of plagiarism as violations of COPYRIGHT law, specifically as the theft of another creator's INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. Because copyright law allows a variety of creative works to be registered as the property of their owners, lawsuits alleging plagiarism can be based on the appropriation of any form of writing, music, and visual images."	Quoted/excerpted from a longer entry for Plagiarism in the following layman's legal encyclopedia: West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1998.
Plagiarize
"to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source" "to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source"	Quoted from the Web dictionary: Merriam-Webster Online: The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary , URL: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary, accessed 12/6/2000.
"to take and use as one's own the thoughts, writings, or inventions of another. (With the thing, rarely the person, as object.)"	Quoted from the Web Dictionary: OED Online:Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2nd edition, URL: http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl, accessed 12/6/2000.

Web Sites for Understanding and Detecting Plagiarism:

The following Web sites are listed here to help your understanding of the seriousness of plagiarism as an area of concern on college campuses:

• Center for Academic Integrity (Keenan Institute of Ethics, Duke University): Contains a searchable database of journal article references on academic integrity.
• Plagiarism: A Guide for California Lutheran University Faculty and Students. Includes information and links practical guides for students on how to avoid plagiarism and links to sources to help faculty with teaching students about plagiarism and for detecting incidences of plagiarism.
• Plagiarism and Academic Honesty and Dishonesty (source: College of Wooster, Psychology Department, Psychology Independent Study Handbook)
• Preventing Plagiarism and Cheating: Information about a book called Preventing Plagiarism and Cheating: An Instructor's Guide, by Gary K. Clabaugh and Edward G. Rozycki.
• Dyrli, Odvard Egil. Services That Detect Online Plagiarism. Matrix Unboud. URL: http://www.matrix-magazine.com/article.php?URL=articles/features/plagiarism.html, visited: December 12, 2000.
• FindSame: A free access (with a patent-pending), content-searchable site for detecting plagiarism from Web sites, sponsored by a company called Digital Integrity.  According to their instructions, users can "Enter a URL or paste some text in one of the boxes below, or upload a file. Then click the "search" button and FindSame will show you where on the Web any piece of the text at that URL appears."
• Glatt Plagiarism Services: This company offers three software programs that help with the detection of plagiarism.
• Integriguard: This dot com claims the following: "We are the premiere Internet-based plagiarism detection/prevention company, offering both free and fee-based services to meet Instructor needs." (accessed on 12/12/00)
• Mag Portal: This search engine indexes and provides links to free-access magazine articles on the Web. If you didn't find it in a Web search engine, perhaps you'll find it here.
• Plagiarism.org: This fee-based service is dedicated to the detection of plagiarism. They offer five free trials to new users.
• Internet Search Tools: This page links to search engines and metasearch engines on the Web. Doing an exact phrase search in one or more of these search engines can help detect instances of plagiarism. Some allow users to select "exact phrase search" as a search option, others allow users to search an exact phrase by putting the phrase in quotes like this: "search this phrase".
• Turnitin.com:  This fee-based service is designed to help teachers detect plagiarism in student papers. They offer five free trials to new users.
• Databases by Title: The College of Wooster Libraries' Web guide that provides access to articles, etc. through the OhioLINK databases and other sources, many of which provide links to full text articles or texts. If the someone else found it electronically through these high quality databases, then you can too.