URGENT HELP - PLAGIARISM

[FestivusMiracle]

Festivus,

I agree that this is not pure literal plagiarism as in stealing someone else's work and claiming it as your own. But the dictionary link you provided says "using .. the language and thoughts of another author ... [and] not crediting the original author". An incorrect citation is indeed not crediting the original author.

In addition, this type of academic dishonesty is generally called "plagiarism" in academia. I agree that academics tend to use the word more loosely than the dictionary meaning, but I think of it as part of the jargon that academics use. But I recall that the OP was not directly accused of plagiarism but will just lose points for making up page numbers.

Anyways, semantics aside, the reason why this is a very serious offense, in my opinion, is that academia survives on proper accreditation. When writing a paper for publication, one of the most important things you do is make sure you do a proper literature review and cite everyone who has contributed ideas related to and important to your own idea. This is important because the main way people can find out about your work is to read a citation of your work in another work and if you don't cite properly, then you are breaking the system (and the referees will probably ask you to cite more papers). Although in this case, it might not be as serious (in my field, we don't include page numbers in our citations), it is not a good habit to develop. In addition, the attitude that using proper references is an annoyance instead of part of our job/duty is the wrong attitude for academics to have! And then there is the arrogance that came with asking people to help them get away with something they know they did wrong!

You'll have to excuse my taste for petty debates.

But I'm afraid that you cited the dictionary way out of context, which is quite ironic given the current topic of discussion. If you had simply posted the entire definition, it would not have supported your argument, since clearly the definition relies on the 'representation of the author's own' phrase which you cunningly omitted.

Check and mate sir, check and mate.

Meow.

[Crucial BBQ]

 

 

Is it just me, or is this not plagiarism? It's definitely laziness, but plagiarism? Plagiarism to me is blatantly stealing others' ideas and, importantly, claiming them for your own. The OP claimed them for someone else which, while wrong, doesn't seem like that huge of an offense. I've done something similar to this a few times, so I can relate. I always cite the right source, though, but occasionally I have guessed on page numbers. It's not really a problem in grad school, though, since most of my citations don't require page numbers.

I took a writing for science course as an undergrad.  The course required two papers, both of which were the only source for the final course grade.  The first paper was a research paper based on a prior (lab) project.  Since we were all undergrad science students with little actual research experience, this was not a problem ( I was actually working as an RA for a chem prof, but chose to use a prior lab report since it was already written and only needed to be expanded upon and tightened up).  Mine was based on one of my organic chemistry labs.  The paper itself was about 15 pages with the introduction being about 2.  Up to that point I was under the impression that common knowledge did not require citation, so my introduction had perhaps three citations tops.  

 

The prof was furious and I couldn't understand why.  She claimed that I plagiarized my entire introduction and that it warranted being brought to the attention of the Dean. I explained, almost in tears, that it was all in my own words and the reason why I had a lack of citations in my introduction was because it was all common knowledge and honestly believed the protocol was to not cite common knowledge.  She said that even though it may have very well been written in my own words that I paraphrased that "common knowledge", and thus committed plagiarism. But because the rest of my paper was properly cited she took my word for it, and, did not report me to the Dean.  She gave my paper a D, though.  You better believe I cited everything on the next paper including my own name and the date. Ended up with a B- as the final course grade. 

Edited April 28, 2014 by Crucial BBQ

[TakeruK]

You'll have to excuse my taste for petty debates.

But I'm afraid that you cited the dictionary way out of context, which is quite ironic given the current topic of discussion. If you had simply posted the entire definition, it would not have supported your argument, since clearly the definition relies on the 'representation of the author's own' phrase which you cunningly omitted.

Check and mate sir, check and mate.

Meow.

 

I don't believe I cited it out of context, but in the interest of petty debates, here is the full definition:

 

"an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author"

 

I had simply omitted the middle part since I did not feel it was relevant to my argument. As I explain more fully in the second half of my post, I am arguing that an incorrect citation is as harmful to the original author as no citation at all. That is, an incorrect citation is indeed "not crediting the original author". If the correct citation is "Mars has characteristic Y (Jones et al. 2008)" and I write "Mars has characteristic Y" or "Mars has characteristic Y (Martins et al. 2007) or "Mars has characteristic Y (hdsldjljdsfs)", all of three of the latter examples would be plagiarism and cause the same harm. In addition, with second to last example, I am not only not-citing the original author, I am wrongly attributing it to a different source (e.g. what the OP did) and making it sound like I did do a proper literature review.

 

Finally, I don't agree that words should only have the meaning of what the dictionary says. As in the example from beyondaboundary, in academia, "plagiarism" has a different meaning and usually encompasses most of academic dishonesty instead of just literally copying and pretending it's your own.

[TheGirlWhoLived]

If you've taken a writing class, you should have learned there are multiple types of plagiarism. This would count as one. 

 

Accidental Plagiarism

Accidental plagiarism occurs when a person neglects to cite their sources, or misquotes their sources, or unintentionally paraphrases a source by using similar words, groups of words, and/or sentence structure without attribution. (See example for mosaic plagiarism.) Students must learn how to cite their sources and to take careful and accurate notes when doing research. (See the Note-Taking section on the Avoiding Plagiarism page.) Lack of intent does not absolve the student of responsibility for plagiarism. Cases of accidental plagiarism are taken as seriously as any other plagiarism and are subject to the same range of consequences as other types of plagiarism.

http://www.bowdoin.edu/studentaffairs/academic-honesty/common-types.shtml

 

This thread should just die at this point, though. 

Edited April 28, 2014 by TheGirlWhoLived

[themmases]

Also, people caught plagiarizing frequently claim that they mistakenly omitted citations, mixed up their notes, didn't do a very thorough literature review, or other excuses from laziness. If those excuses were acceptable, we would have academic communities rife with plagiarism that couldn't be seriously addressed because there's no way to know for sure what was in Professor Smith's mind when they submitted someone else's words as their own.

 

IME journals (and my instructors before them) don't accept papers or images that are incorrectly formatted and merely inconvenience the editors and printer, regardless of the reason. Motivation is at least as relevant to incorrect citation, which harms others if accepted. It certainly doesn't help an academic's editors, coauthors, colleagues, or the people they steal from if they "only" made a decision to write lazily, knowing the consequences could be serious.

 

Academic norms about acknowledging others' contributions are superior to those in many non-academic fields and far, far superior to what I've seen in the quasi-academic area of clinical research-- so much so that it's a major reason I'm leaving. Researchers should unapologetically defend those norms against stealing work and even find areas to improve (as in authorship disputes), not quibble over whether they're OK if the person's excuse is hard enough to disprove.

[juilletmercredi]

Festivus, you should know that the dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive.  It describes words the way people commonly use them, not the way that they should be used or are used in specific contexts like academia.  Furthermore, the dictionary definition isn't really a good reference mechanism for an academic who wants to know what the standards of their field are.

 

In academic writing (and pretty much all writing, honestly), citing work incorrectly or not citing at all is plagiarism.  If we want to get technical, paraphrasing or discussing the work of another author without crediting that author is "an act or instance of using...the...thoughts of another author" without crediting the original author.  There's a neat website called Plagiarism.org that outlines types of plagiarism - including inaccurate information about sources is one of them.  And the websites of most university writing centers note proper citations as a key element of avoiding plagiarism, including unintentional plagiarism.  Plagiarism can certainly be unintentional.

 

With that said, I agree that owning up to the mistake is the best way to handle this.

[FestivusMiracle]

I feel like applying plagiarism to this case results in this word losing its original intent. Maybe the word has been hijacked by individuals who don't understand the importance of meaning, but it's still no excuse. I think someone on gradcafe should come up with an alternative word that describes 'plagiarism' that occurs in the absence of one trying to take credit for another's ideas. I'm too burnt out from final papers to come up with one.

[PsychGirl1]

I feel like applying plagiarism to this case results in this word losing its original intent. Maybe the word has been hijacked by individuals who don't understand the importance of meaning, but it's still no excuse. I think someone on gradcafe should come up with an alternative word that describes 'plagiarism' that occurs in the absence of one trying to take credit for another's ideas. I'm too burnt out from final papers to come up with one.

 

Well, even if someone on gradcafe came up with another word, you will still have everybody else in academia using the word "plagiarism", and you would still get the same repercussions from doing so.

[TakeruK]

I feel like applying plagiarism to this case results in this word losing its original intent. Maybe the word has been hijacked by individuals who don't understand the importance of meaning, but it's still no excuse. I think someone on gradcafe should come up with an alternative word that describes 'plagiarism' that occurs in the absence of one trying to take credit for another's ideas. I'm too burnt out from final papers to come up with one.

 

I understand your opinion, but my opinion is that the meaning of words should evolve based on how people actually use them and the same word can have more than one meaning depending on context. The only "guardians" of language should be the users and since people in academia are using "plagiarism" to include incorrect citations as well, then it will include incorrect citations as well. 

 

I don't agree that there is such a thing as "individuals who don't understand the importance of meaning". Every person using a language has equal right to modify it. Of course, if I personally decide to use "plagiarism" to mean "bananas" then this idea isn't going to catch on very well and no one will understand my meaning. However, everyone else in academia seems to understand that "plagiarism" includes lazy/incorrect citations so this is an appropriate meaning for that word. 

 

For example, a long time ago, the word "pirate" meant someone who robs ships at sea. Now, we still use it to mean stealing, but if a person illegally downloads a movie, they are still called a "pirate" even if this person is doing it nowhere near a ship nor at sea at all! 

[Lisa44201]

Also, people caught plagiarizing frequently claim that they mistakenly omitted citations, mixed up their notes, didn't do a very thorough literature review, or other excuses from laziness. If those excuses were acceptable, we would have academic communities rife with plagiarism that couldn't be seriously addressed because there's no way to know for sure what was in Professor Smith's mind when they submitted someone else's words as their own.

 

IME journals (and my instructors before them) don't accept papers or images that are incorrectly formatted and merely inconvenience the editors and printer, regardless of the reason. Motivation is at least as relevant to incorrect citation, which harms others if accepted. It certainly doesn't help an academic's editors, coauthors, colleagues, or the people they steal from if they "only" made a decision to write lazily, knowing the consequences could be serious.

 

Academic norms about acknowledging others' contributions are superior to those in many non-academic fields and far, far superior to what I've seen in the quasi-academic area of clinical research-- so much so that it's a major reason I'm leaving. Researchers should unapologetically defend those norms against stealing work and even find areas to improve (as in authorship disputes), not quibble over whether they're OK if the person's excuse is hard enough to disprove.

This. I may paraphrase (and cite    ) this when I teach next semester. 

[threading_the_neidl]

Festivus, I don't agree with you, but I really love that username. Just sayin'.

[FestivusMiracle]

Festivus, I don't agree with you, but I really love that username. Just sayin'.

How dare you not agree with me! Ha jk nobody agrees with me on this topic, despite the fact that I'm right.

Are you a huge Seinfeld fan like me?

[threading_the_neidl]

I enjoy the show, not a super fan, but I LOVE Festivus. Our department even has our own Festivus Pole. I'm pretty sure every faculty meeting is an Airing of Grievances, but what I'd really like to see is our chair and program advisor compete in the Feats of Strength.

[FestivusMiracle]

I enjoy the show, not a super fan, but I LOVE Festivus. Our department even has our own Festivus Pole. I'm pretty sure every faculty meeting is an Airing of Grievances, but what I'd really like to see is our chair and program advisor compete in the Feats of Strength.

I want to transfer to this department!

[danieleWrites]

Citing sources incorrectly is not plagiarism, even if the writer intentionally cites sources incorrectly. It's misattribution. Plagiarism is claiming the words or ideas of others as one's own. The OP did not do that.

It's academic dishonesty, which is not interchangeable with plagiarism. I cannot tell you how much trouble I've had teaching students about plagiarism, only to find out that some people in academia are using academic dishonesty and plagiarism interchangeably. They're not. Undergrads can easily think that the only thing they have to worry about in terms of academic honesty/integrity is plagiarism, so if they aren't plagiarizing, then they can do it. Writing courses are where students are directly taught, in class, what plagiarism is. That's the textbook they read that explains what plagiarism is. However we in grad school use the word, that doesn't change how the word is taught.

The OP can whangle some fake notes to get her/himself out of the situation, and out of plagiarism trouble. However, that will not change the simple fact that s/he committed academic dishonesty. The integrity of research is paramount, and that means honesty about the data. Andrew Wakefield of the vax/autism research did not plagiarize, he flat out lied about his results.

It might seem like a trivial quibble, but it's not. Teachers that misrepresent plagiarism because for whatever reason can have some serious problems should some enterprising loop-hole looker snoop through the university's academic honesty/integrity policy. It has happened, not often, but it has happened.

Frankly, as disgusting as I find plagiarism, I find other forms of academic dishonesty far more disgusting. Plagiarism just passes someone else's work off. Academic dishonesty has far more profound effects, even when it's not discovered.

[reinhard]

Everyone is being so hard on the guy. No body is thinking in his shoes.

 

I actually think telling the truth here about your laziness is going to backfire, it just sounds too strange.

 

What is "wrong with these notes" what are these "notes"?

 

Addendum: From the teacher's remarks, I think he/she already knows you aren't going to be able to "prove him wrong".

Edited May 3, 2014 by reinhard

[Guest |||]

Why not just find where the actual source was for your material and say you messed (as you did) in the page references? 

 

If the prof cares he will ask how you did so and you can explain yourself, and if he no longer cares at that point settle for whatever mark deducation given.

[Science_Nerd]

You lied. Now you pay.

 

I don't understand why this post was (-1)ed.

I guess to someone, "the truth hurts".

Edited May 14, 2014 by Science_Nerd

[Science_Nerd]

The plagiarism definition debate on page 2 reminded me of Ad Hominem fallacy that politicians love so much.

 

Just saying.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Science_Nerd

[ctg7w6]

Citing sources incorrectly is not plagiarism, even if the writer intentionally cites sources incorrectly. It's misattribution. Plagiarism is claiming the words or ideas of others as one's own. The OP did not do that.

 

 

I believe this is correct. A few people here are saying that we can't use the dictionary as an authoritative source... That sounds a bit silly to me.

 

Think of the phrase "I couldn't care less." It is commonly spoken as "I could care less." Clearly the second way is wrong (using logic, not a dictionary). Just because it is commonly said the second way it isn't magically correct because the speakers are the guardians of language.

 

If you use a well-established word differently from the dictionary, then you are simply using the wrong word. Yes, languages and words evolve different meanings, but that is not a free pass to call every book a donkey and if you get enough people to use it that way that it is now correct. Appealing to the people is a logical fallacy.

 

In this case, we have a word for what was done here: misattribution.

 

Also... I am a little unhappy with the fact that many people are complaining about this only from the perspective of credit for the source. Yes, part of the reasoning for citation is to give credit to the person who came up with the idea. That is great. But there is an even higher purpose here for using citations. We want to add to knowledge in the world. We do this by coming up with our own ideas and then citing those who helped formulate our ideas from their ideas. This allows people to check the source and  (hopefully) become convinced of our argument. In addition, it adds to knowledge by building a web of sources on our particular topic. If you consult two or three papers that have good citations, you will now be able to locate a plethora of other articles that deal with the subject.

 

Our main purpose for citation is the acquisition of knowledge and contribution to knowledge, not giving personal credit to someone, though that is much appreciated and makes writers (including me) happy.

[TakeruK]

I believe this is correct. A few people here are saying that we can't use the dictionary as an authoritative source... That sounds a bit silly to me.

 

Think of the phrase "I couldn't care less." It is commonly spoken as "I could care less." Clearly the second way is wrong (using logic, not a dictionary). Just because it is commonly said the second way it isn't magically correct because the speakers are the guardians of language.

 

If you use a well-established word differently from the dictionary, then you are simply using the wrong word. Yes, languages and words evolve different meanings, but that is not a free pass to call every book a donkey and if you get enough people to use it that way that it is now correct. Appealing to the people is a logical fallacy.

 

I agree with everything else you said, but I don't agree that there is an absolute truth to what a word should mean or what word should be attributed to something, or even how one must spell a word. To me, language is just a tool and we, the users of the tool, should adjust and alter the tool as we wish.  

So, I think if a community defines a word a certain way, then within that community, that definition should supercede other definitions. If for some weird reason, a community decides to exchange the words "book" and "donkey" then that's perfectly fine within that community. In my opinion, whether or not it becomes "magically correct" or not depends on whether people, the users of the language, accept this definition. 

 

I think academics do this all the time. When I write about the colour of the star within the astronomical community, one common understanding of the word is the ratio of how bright the star looks when viewed with a filter that mostly lets blue light through compared to a filter that lets mostly red light through. This is not how colour is defined at all: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/color.

 

Is this an incorrect use of the word because it's not in the dictionary? No, I don't think so, because this is a convention that astronomers have agreed upon and this is a fine use within this community. So if a community decides to use "donkey" to mean "book" and "book" to mean "donkey", are they wrong? In my opinion, if this is the generally accepted convention, then they are not wrong at all.

 

Finally, appealing to the people is a type of logical fallacy but my argument is that there should not exist a "correct" language. In my opinion, dictionaries and grammar books are reference sources to some commonly agreed upon conventions of language, but they do not represent some sort of ideal "correctness" that we should uphold. As long as we write/speak in a way that is understandable and acceptable to others, then we are using language correctly.

[FestivusMiracle]

The problem is that plagiarism has such a strong negative connotation, and therefore its use should be more restricted than other words. Although not as severe, misusing the word plagiarism is kinda like misusing the word rape. Given the significance of someone accused of either plagiarism or rape, it is important to be precise when considering using these words. I'm OK with the notion of word evolution most of the time, but some words should maintain a relatively fixed meaning, and plagiarism is one of those words.

[Science_Nerd]

It's just so funny to me how the discussion is digressing so much from the actual problem.

 

No one is disagreeing with the fact that the very definition may not be as "academic" usage of the word, but in this case, we are dealing with the issue here based on "Academic Plagiarism" and the fact that someone pointing out that it is not how the dictionary says about the word is pointless.

 

 

Anyways, I wonder how the OP addressed the issue.

[ZVBXRPL]

Easy street is a one way road to failure.