Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own

original work Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion t ...

.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'':

use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work

qtd. in From the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft.

While precise definitions vary, depending on the institution, such representations are generally considered to violate

academic integrity Academic integrity is the moral code or ethical policy of academia. The term was popularized by the R.C (USA), who is considered to be the "grandfather of academic integrity". Other prominent academic integrity scholars and advocates include Trace ...

and

journalistic ethics Journalistic ethics and standards comprise principles of ethics and good practice applicable to journalists. This subset of media ethics is known as journalism's professional "code of ethics" and the "canons of journalism". The basic codes and c ...

as well as social norms of learning, teaching, research, fairness, respect and responsibility in many cultures. It is subject to sanctions such as penalties, suspension,

expulsion Expulsion or expelled may refer to: General * Deportation * Ejection (sports) * Eviction * Exile * Expeller pressing * Expulsion (education) * Expulsion from the United States Congress * Extradition * Forced migration * Ostracism * Persona non ...

from school or work, substantial

fines Fines may refer to: * Fines, Andalusia, Spanish municipality * Fine (penalty) * Fine, a dated term for a premium on a lease of land, a large sum the tenant pays to commute (lessen) the rent throughout the term *Fines, ore or other products with a s ...

and even

imprisonment Imprisonment is the restraint of a person's liberty, for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is "false imprisonment". Imprisonment does not necessari ...

. Plagiarism is typically not in itself a

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...

, but like

counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

ing,

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

can be punished in a

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...

for

prejudices Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perc ...

caused by

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

, violation of

moral rights Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions. The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work pu ...

, or

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

s. In academia and industry, it is a serious

ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

offense. Plagiarism and copyright infringement overlap to a considerable extent, but they are not equivalent concepts, and many types of plagiarism do not constitute copyright infringement, which is defined by copyright law and may be

adjudicated Adjudication is the legal process by which an arbiter or judge reviews evidence and argumentation, including legal reasoning set forth by opposing parties or litigants, to come to a decision which determines rights and obligations between the ...

by courts. Not all countries hold the same beliefs about personal ownership of language or ideas. While some, such as

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, consider plagiarism to be a crime liable for imprisonment, in other countries the reiteration of another professional's work can be a sign of respect or flattery. Students who move to the United States and other Western countries from countries where plagiarism is not frowned upon may find the transition difficult.

Etymology and ancient history

In the 1st century, the use of the Latin word "''plagiarius"'' (literally "kidnapper") to denote stealing someone else's

creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, and composition. Legal definitions Creative works require a cre ...

was pioneered by the Roman poet

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...

, who complained that another poet had "kidnapped his verses". ''Plagiary'', a derivative of ''plagiarus'', was introduced into English in 1601 by dramatist

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

during the

Jacobean Era The Jacobean era was the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Ca ...

to describe someone guilty of literary theft. Republished as: The derived form ''plagiarism'' was introduced into English around 1620. The

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''plagiārius'', "kidnapper", and ''plagium'', "kidnapping", have the root ''plaga'' ("snare", "net"), based on the

Indo-European root The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occurred alone in the lang ...

''*-plak'', "to weave" (seen for instance in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''plekein'', Bulgarian "плета" ''pleta'', and Latin ''plectere'', all meaning "to weave"). It is frequently claimed that people in antiquity had no concept of plagiarism, or at least did not condemn it, and it only came to be seen as immoral much later, anywhere from the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

in the 17th century to the

Romantic movement Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

in the 18th century. While people in antiquity found detecting plagiarism difficult due to the paucity of literate persons as well as long travel times, there are a considerable number of pre-Enlightenment authors, who accuse others of plagiarism and consider it distasteful and scandalous, including the respected historians

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

. The 3rd century Greek work ''

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...

'' mentions that

Heraclides Ponticus Heraclides Ponticus ( grc-gre, Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός ''Herakleides''; c. 390 BC – c. 310 BC) was a Greek philosopher and astronomer who was born in Heraclea Pontica, now Karadeniz Ereğli, Turkey, and migrated to Athens. He ...

was accused of plagiarizing () a treatise on Heliod and Homer. In

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled ''De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribute ...

's 7th book, he acknowledges his debt to earlier writers and attributes them. He also passes a strong condemnation of plagiarism: "Earlier writers deserve our thanks, those, on the contrary, deserve our reproaches, who steal the writings of such men and publish them as their own. Those, who depend in their writings, not on their own ideas, but who enviously do wrong to the works of others and boast of it, deserve not merely to be blamed, but to be sentenced to actual punishment for their wicked course of life." Vitruvius goes on to claim that "such things did not pass without strict chastisement". He recounts a story where the well-read

Aristophanes of Byzantium __NOTOC__ Aristophanes of Byzantium ( grc-gre, Ἀριστοφάνης ὁ Βυζάντιος ; BC) was a Hellenistic Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other ...

judged a poetry competition. Aristophanes caught most of the contestants plagiarizing others' poems as their own. The king ordered the plagiarizers to confess that they were thieves, and they were condemned to disgrace. While the story may be apocryphal, it shows that Vitruvius personally considered plagiarism reprehensible.

Legal aspects

Although plagiarism in some contexts is considered theft or stealing, the concept does not exist in a legal sense. although the use of someone else's work in order to gain academic credit may meet some legal definitions of

. "Plagiarism" specifically is not mentioned in any current statute, either

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

.Lands, Robert (1999
''Plagiarism is no Crime''
published by The Association of Illustrators (AOI), December 1999. Quotation: "Plagiarism may be a taboo in academia, but in art is almost essential." Some cases may be treated as

unfair competition Unfair may refer to: * Double Taz and Double LeBron James in multiverses ''fair''; unfairness or injustice * ''Unfair'' (drama), Japanese television series * '' Unfair: The Movie'' * Unfair (song), a song by South Korean boy group EXO * Submitting someone's work as their own. * Taking passages from their own previous work without adding citations (self-plagiarism). * Re-writing someone's work without properly citing sources. * Using quotations but not citing the source. * Interweaving various sources together in the work without citing. * Citing some, but not all, passages that should be cited. * Melding together cited and uncited sections of the piece. * Providing proper citations, but failing to change the structure and wording of the borrowed ideas enough (close paraphrasing). * Inaccurately citing a source. * Relying too heavily on other people's work, failing to bring original thought into the text. A 2019 systematic literature review on academic

plagiarism detection Plagiarism detection or content similarity detection is the process of locating instances of plagiarism or copyright infringement within a work or document. The widespread use of computers and the advent of the Internet have made it easier to pla ...

deductively derived a technically oriented typology of academic plagiarism from the linguistic model of language consisting of

lexis Lexis may refer to: * Lexis (linguistics), the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon *Lexis (Aristotle), a complete group of words in a language *LexisNexis, part of the LexisNexis onl ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

, and

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...

extended by a fourth layer to capture the plagiarism of ideas and structures. The typology categorizes plagiarism forms according to the layer of the model they affect: * Characters-preserving plagiarism **Verbatim copying without proper citation * Syntax-preserving plagiarism **Synonym substitution **Technical disguise (e.g. using identically looking

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

s from another

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

) * Semantics-preserving plagiarism **

Translation Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

Paraphrase A paraphrase () is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. The term itself is derived via Latin ', . The act of paraphrasing is also called ''paraphrasis''. History Although paraphrases likely abounded in oral tra ...

* Idea-preserving plagiarism **Appropriation of ideas or concepts **Reusing text structure *

Ghostwriting A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...

Collusion Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right. Collusion is not always considered illegal. It can be used to att ...

(typically among students) **

Contract cheating Contract cheating is a form of academic dishonesty in which students pay others to complete their coursework. The term was coined in a 2006 study by Thomas Lancaster and the late Robert Clarke (UK),Glendinning, I., Foltýnek, T., Dlabolová, D., Li ...

Sanctions for student plagiarism

In the academic world, plagiarism by students is usually considered a very serious offense that can result in punishments such as a failing grade on the particular assignment, the entire course, or even being expelled from the institution. The seriousness with which academic institutions address student plagiarism may be tempered by a recognition that students may not fully understand what plagiarism is. A 2015 study showed that students who were new to university study did not have a good understanding of even the basic requirements of how to attribute sources in written academic work, yet students were very confident that they understood what referencing and plagiarism are. The same students also had a lenient view of how plagiarism should be penalised. For cases of repeated plagiarism, or for cases in which a student commits severe plagiarism (e.g., purchasing an assignment), suspension or

may occur. There has been historic concern about inconsistencies in penalties administered for university student plagiarism, and a plagiarism tariff was devised in 2008 for UK higher education institutions in an attempt to encourage some standardization of approaches. However, to impose sanctions, plagiarism needs to be detected. Strategies faculty members use to detect plagiarism include carefully reading students work and making note of inconsistencies in student writing, citation errors and providing plagiarism prevention education to students. It has been found that a significant share of (university) teachers do not use detection methods such as using text-matching software. A few more try to detect plagiarism by reading term-papers specifically for plagiarism, while the latter method might be not very effective in detecting plagiarism – especially when plagiarism from unfamiliar sources needs to be detected. There are checklists of tactics to prevent student plagiarism.

Plagiarism education

Given the serious consequences that plagiarism has for students, there has been a call for a greater emphasis on learning in order to help students avoid committing plagiarism. This is especially important when students move to a new institution that may have a different view of the concept when compared with the view previously developed by the student. Indeed, given the seriousness of plagiarism accusations for a student's future, the pedagogy of plagiarism education may need to be considered ahead of the pedagogy of the discipline being studied. The need for plagiarism education extends to academic staff, who may not completely understand what is expected of their students or the consequences of misconduct. Actions to reduce plagiarism include coordinating teaching activities to decrease student load; reducing memorization, increasing individual practical activities; and promoting positive reinforcement over punishment.

Factors influencing students' decisions to plagiarize

Several studies investigated factors that influence the decision to plagiarize. For example, a panel study with students from German universities found that academic procrastination predicts the frequency plagiarism conducted within six months followed the measurement of academic procrastination. It has been argued that by plagiarizing, students cope with the negative consequences that result from academic procrastination such as poor grades. Another study found that plagiarism is more frequent if students perceive plagiarism as beneficial and if they have the opportunity to plagiarize. When students had expected higher sanctions and when they had internalized social norms that define plagiarism as very objectionable, plagiarism was less likely to occur. Another study found that students resorted to plagiarism in order to cope with heavy workloads imposed by teachers. On the other hand, in that study, some teachers also thought that plagiarism is a consequence of their own failure to propose creative tasks and activities.

Journalism

Since journalism relies on the public trust, a reporter's failure to honestly acknowledge their sources undercuts a newspaper or television news show's integrity and undermines its credibility. Journalists accused of plagiarism are often suspended from their reporting tasks while the charges are being investigated by the news organization.

Self-plagiarism

The reuse of significant, identical, or nearly identical portions of one's own work without acknowledging that one is doing so or citing the original work is sometimes described as "self-plagiarism"; the term "recycling fraud" has also been used to describe this practice. Articles of this nature are often referred to as duplicate or

multiple publication Duplicate publication, multiple publication, or redundant publication refers to publishing the same intellectual material more than once, by the author or publisher. It does not refer to the unauthorized republication by someone else, which const ...

. In addition there can be a copyright issue if copyright of the prior work has been transferred to another entity. Self-plagiarism is considered a serious ethical issue in settings where someone asserts that a publication consists of new material, such as in publishing or factual documentation. It does not apply to public-interest texts, such as social, professional, and cultural opinions usually published in newspapers and magazines. In academic fields, self-plagiarism occurs when an author reuses portions of their own published and copyrighted work in subsequent publications, but without attributing the previous publication.Roig, M. (2010). Plagiarism and self-plagiarism: What every author should know. ''Biochemia Medica, 20''(3), 295-300.
/ref> Identifying self-plagiarism is often difficult because limited reuse of material is accepted both legally (as

fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

) and ethically. Many people (mostly, but not limited to critics of copyright and "intellectual property") do not believe it is possible to plagiarize oneself. Critics of the concepts of plagiarism and copyright may use the idea of self-plagiarism as a

reductio ad absurdum In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical arguments'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absu ...

argument.

Contested definition

Miguel Roig has written at length about the topic of self-plagiarism and his definition of self-plagiarism as using previously disseminated work is widely accepted among scholars of the topic. However, the term "self-plagiarism" has been challenged as being self-contradictory, an

oxymoron An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical devi ...

, and on other grounds. For example, Stephanie J. Bird argues that self-plagiarism is a misnomer, since by definition plagiarism concerns the use of others' material. Bird identifies the ethical issues of "self-plagiarism" as those of "dual or redundant publication". She also notes that in an educational context, "self-plagiarism" refers to the case of a student who resubmits "the same essay for credit in two different courses." As David B. Resnik clarifies, "Self-plagiarism involves dishonesty but not intellectual theft." According to Patrick M. Scanlon, "self-plagiarism" is a term with some specialized currency. Most prominently, it is used in discussions of research and publishing integrity in biomedicine, where heavy publish-or-perish demands have led to a rash of duplicate and "salami-slicing" publication, the reporting of a single study's results in "

least publishable unit In academic publishing, the least publishable unit (LPU), also smallest publishable unit (SPU), minimum publishable unit (MPU), loot, or publon, is the smallest measurable quantum of publication, the minimum amount of information that can be used t ...

s" within multiple articles (Blancett, Flanagin, & Young, 1995; Jefferson, 1998; Kassirer & Angell, 1995; Lowe, 2003; McCarthy, 1993; Schein & Paladugu, 2001; Wheeler, 1989). Roig (2002) offers a useful classification system including four types of self-plagiarism: duplicate publication of an article in more than one journal; partitioning of one study into multiple publications, often called salami-slicing; text recycling; and copyright infringement.

Codes of ethics

Some academic journals have codes of ethics that specifically refer to self-plagiarism. For example, the ''Journal of International Business Studies''. Some professional organizations such as the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM) have created policies that deal specifically with self-plagiarism. Other organizations do not make specific reference to self-plagiarism such as the American Political Science Association (APSA). The organization published a code of ethics that describes plagiarism as "...deliberate appropriation of the works of others represented as one's own." It does not make any reference to self-plagiarism. It does say that when a thesis or dissertation is published "in whole or in part", the author is "not ordinarily under an ethical obligation to acknowledge its origins." The American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) also published a code of ethics that says its members are committed to: "Ensure that others receive credit for their work and contributions," but it makes no reference to self-plagiarism.

Factors that justify reuse

Pamela Samuelson Pamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman '74 Distinguished Professor of Law and Information Management at the University of California, Berkeley with a joint appointment in the UC Berkeley School of Information and Boalt Hall, the School of Law. ...

, in 1994, identified several factors she says excuse reuse of one's previously published work, that make it not self-plagiarism. She relates each of these factors specifically to the ethical issue of self-plagiarism, as distinct from the legal issue of fair use of copyright, which she deals with separately. Among other factors that may excuse reuse of previously published material Samuelson lists the following: * The previous work must be restated to lay the groundwork for a new contribution in the second work. * Portions of the previous work must be repeated to deal with new evidence or arguments. * The audience for each work is so different that publishing the same work in different places is necessary to get the message out. * The author thinks they said it so well the first time that it makes no sense to say it differently a second time. Samuelson states she has relied on the "different audience" rationale when attempting to bridge interdisciplinary communities. She refers to writing for different legal and technical communities, saying: "there are often paragraphs or sequences of paragraphs that can be bodily lifted from one article to the other. And, in truth, I lift them." She refers to her own practice of converting "a technical article into a law review article with relatively few changes—adding footnotes and one substantive section" for a different audience. Samuelson describes misrepresentation as the basis of self-plagiarism. She also states "Although it seems not to have been raised in any of the self-plagiarism cases, copyrights law's fair use defense would likely provide a shield against many potential publisher claims of copyright infringement against authors who reused portions of their previous works."

Organizational publications

Plagiarism is presumably not an issue when organizations issue collective unsigned works since they do not assign credit for originality to particular people. For example, the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

's "Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct" (2005) regarding textbooks and reference books states that, since textbooks and encyclopedias are summaries of other scholars' work, they are not bound by the same exacting standards of attribution as original research and may be allowed a greater "extent of dependence" on other works. However, even such a book does not make use of words, phrases, or paragraphs from another text or follow too closely the other text's arrangement and organization, and the authors of such texts are also expected to "acknowledge the sources of recent or distinctive findings and interpretations, those not yet a part of the common understanding of the profession."

In the arts

The history of the arts

Through all of the

history of literature The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...

and of the arts in general, works of art are to a large extent repetitions of the

tradition A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

; to the entire history of artistic creativity belong plagiarism, literary theft, appropriation, incorporation, retelling, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, reprise, thematic variation, ironic retake,

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

, imitation, stylistic theft,

pastiche A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it ...

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

s, and deliberate assemblages.Derrida

959 Year 959 ( CMLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * April - May – The Byzantines refuse to pay the yearly tribute. A Hungari ...

quotation: (p.40): "The boundaries between permissible and impermissible, imitation, stylistic plagiarism, copy, replica and forgery remain nebulous."Eco (1990) p. 95 quotation: There is no rigorous and precise distinction between practices like imitation, stylistic plagiarism,

copy Copy may refer to: *Copying or the product of copying (including the plural "copies"); the duplication of information or an artifact **Cut, copy and paste, a method of reproducing text or other data in computing **File copying **Photocopying, a pr ...

replica A 1:1 replica is an exact copy of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. Al ...

and

forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidd ...

.Haywood (1987) p.109, quoting ArnauEco (1987) p.202, quoting ArnauArnau

quotation: (p. 40) "The boundaries between permissible and impermissible, imitation, stylistic plagiarism, copy, replica and forgery remain nebulous." These appropriation procedures are the main axis of a literate culture, in which the tradition of the canonic past is being constantly rewritten.Steiner (1998) pp. 437, 459 quotation: Ruth Graham quotes T. S. Eliot—"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. Bad poets deface what they take."—she notes that despite the "taboo" of plagiarism, the ill-will and embarrassment it causes in the modern context, readers seem to often forgive the past excesses of historic literary offenders.

Praisings of artistic plagiarism

A passage of

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', published ...

's 1767 ''

Tristram Shandy Tristram may refer to: Literature * the title character of ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', a novel by Laurence Sterne * the title character of ''Tristram of Lyonesse'', an epic poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne *"Tristra ...

'' condemns plagiarism by resorting to plagiarism.

Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his pl ...

commented:

Sterne's Writings, in which it is clearly shewn, that he, whose manner and style were so long thought original, was, in fact, the most unhesitating plagiarist who ever cribbed from his predecessors in order to garnish his own pages. It must be owned, at the same time, that Sterne selects the materials of his mosaic work with so much art, places them so well, and polishes them so highly, that in most cases we are disposed to pardon the want of originality, in consideration of the exquisite talent with which the borrowed materials are wrought up into the new form.

In other contexts

On the Internet

Free online tools are becoming available to help identify plagiarism, and there are a range of approaches that attempt to limit online copying, such as

disabling Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, ...

right clicking and placing warning banners regarding copyrights on web pages. Instances of plagiarism that involve copyright violation may be addressed by the rightful content owners sending a

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...

removal notice to the offending site-owner, or to the

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

that is hosting the offending site. The term "content scraping" has arisen to describe the copying and pasting of information from websites and blogs.

Reverse plagiarism

''Reverse plagiarism'', or ''attribution without copying'', refers to falsely giving authorship credit over a work to a person who did not author it, or falsely claiming a source supports an assertion that the source does not make. While both the term and activity are relatively rare, incidents of reverse plagiarism do occur typically in similar contexts as traditional plagiarism.

References

Works cited

* Arnau, Frank Translation from the German by Brownjohn, J. Maxwell (1961). '' The Art of the Faker''. Little, Brown and Company. *

Derrida, Jacques Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

, Roudinesco, Élisabeth 001(2004) ''De Quoi Demain'', English translation 2004 by Jeff Fort as ''For what tomorrow—: a dialogue'', ch.4 ''Unforeseeable Freedom'' * Blum, Susan D. ''My Word!
Plagiarism and College Culture
' (2010) * Eco, Umberto (1987) ''Fakes and Forgeries'' in ''Versus, Issues 46–48'', republished in 1990 in ''The limits of interpretation'' pp. 174–202 * Eco, Umberto (1990) ''Interpreting Serials'' in ''The limits of interpretation'', pp. 83–100, excerpt; link unavailable *

Gérard Genette Gérard Genette (7 June 1930 – 11 May 2018) was a French literary theorist, associated in particular with the structuralist movement and such figures as Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss, from whom he adapted the concept of ''bricolage ...

(1982) '' Palimpsests: literature in the second degree'' *Haywood, Ian (1987) ''Faking it'' * *Joachimides, Christos M. and Rosenthal, Norman and Anfam, David and Adams, Brooks (1993) ''American art in the 20th century: painting and sculpture 1913–1993'' *Paull, Harry Major (1928) ''Literary ethics: a study in the growth of the literary conscience'' Part II, ch.X ''Parody and Burlesque'' pp. 133–40 (public domain work, author died in 1934) *

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

(2007) ''The RSC Shakespeare – William Shakespeare Complete Works'', Introduction to the

Comedy of Errors ''The Comedy of Errors'' is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. It ...

*Ruthven, K. K. (2001) ''Faking Literature'' * Spearing, A. C. (1987) ''Introduction'' section to Chaucer's ''

The Franklin's Prologue and Tale "The Franklin's Tale" ( enm, The Frankeleyns Tale) is one of ''The Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer. It focuses on issues of providence, truth, generosity and ''gentillesse'' in human relationships. Synopsis A medieval Franklin (class), ...

'' * Spearing, A. C. (1989) ''Readings in medieval poetry'' * Steiner, George (1998) ''

After Babel ''After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation'' (1975; second edition 1992; third edition 1998) is a linguistics book by literary critic George Steiner, in which the author deals with the " Babel problem" of multiple languages. ''After Bab ...

'', ch.6 ''Topologies of culture'', 3rd revised edition

External links

* * * {{Authority control Education issues Intellectual property law Intellectual works Misconduct Theft