Plagiarism: It's probably not worth doing it

Plagiarism is in the news this week after it was revealed that the now ex-German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg plagiarised his university dissertation. Following that revelation was that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is also guilty of the same issue. He is, of course, much in the news at the moment as he backs up his fathers regime in Libya. Personally I am glad plagiarism has been highlighted in the news. I'll never understand why people put the time and effort into building up an article or essay full of plagiarism when the same time and effort could be put into writing a refreshing original which would actually highlight the individuals knowledge and their writing skill. Or is that part of it? Does the individual not possess the knowledge about what they are writing? So therefore, should they be writing about it? American website Plagiarism.org lists 11 types of plagiarism. They are:

Sources Not Cited

"The Ghost Writer"

The writer turns in another's work, word-for-word, as his or her own.

"The Photocopy"

The writer copies significant portions of text straight from a single source, without alteration.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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)

"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.

"The Misinformer"

The writer provides inaccurate information regarding the sources, making it impossible to find them.

"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.

"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.

"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.

As much as we try not to be we are probably all guilty of one of the above at some point or another. People argue about whether or not plagiarism is a crime but in the UK is can be considered a crime of theft or a crime of fraud depending on the circumstances surrounding the copying. It's considered to be rife in UK universities and now website PlagiarmismAdvice.org is actively encouraging students to write original work. A quick Google search also highlighted how many plagiarism checker sites there now are available to people. Clearly more people are worried that their work is being copied and the Internet does, of course, open up many more opportunities for plagiarism to take place. However, it's worth noting that many news sites, and other information sites, are beginning to copyright their work up to the hilt and, as zu Guttenberg and Gaddafi found out, it may have been copied years ago but it can still come back and bite you in the ass.