How well-defined is plagiarism?
I don’t think there’s any other word in the English language that can stir up such passionate feelings among writers and the publishing world at large as the word plagiarism can. And for an honest writer accused of plagiarism, I think death might be a more preferable fate, as with the latter a writer doesn’t have to suffer through the humiliation of defending his/her own work from accusations that parts of it (or worse, the entire manuscript) has been copied from another source.
But one article, in discussing the controversy surrounding Southern Illinois University’s (SIU) President Glenn Poshard plagiarized various sections of his doctoral thesis, brings up the broader point of how plagiarism should be defined. While on the surface this appears to be a straightforward issue, digging a little deeper shows that plagiarism is not very clear-cut at all. As the article points out, there are three different types of plagiarism:
By the time the task force was finished equivocating, though, the faculty committee reviewing Poshard’s dissertation had plenty of wiggle room to declare the president guilty of "inadvertent plagiarism" — carelessness, in other words. This is not to be confused with "uneducated plagiarism," which suggests the writer truly didn’t know better, or "intentional plagiarism," which might as well be defined as stealing someone else’s work and admitting it once you’re caught.
When I was a college student I went to great lengths to properly cite all my sources so that none of my professors could even think to accuse me of plagiarism. And since I was an English literature major, with a minor in philosophy, writing essays was my bread and butter in both those subjects, so we were expected to know better. Even "accidental" plagiarism (forgetting to cite a source,etc) was dealt with severely at my university. The burden of proof lay with the writer and the range of punishments could be everything from failing the assignment or class (most likely) to being expelled from the university (reserved for the most extreme cases or repeat offenders).
Many of you might argue, however, that plagiarism is just that, plagiarism and if a work is copied and not properly cited, justice should be swift. But as the article also points out, there are gray areas within this debate that also must be taken into account:
If you think plagiarism is plagiarism is plagiarism, then you don’t know about "cryptomnesia," which is what happens when a writer internalizes someone else’s ideas so completely that she forgets she didn’t think them up herself. Another writer, in striving to imitate the lingo of his subject matter, might lift too much verbatim wording, but that’s not plagiarism — it’s "patchwriting."
I have found myself in the grasp of cryptomnesia a few years ago when I was planning on producing my own short animated cartoon. The idea I had, which I thought was original at the time, turned out to be something I saw on a "Family Guy" episode and had apparently forgotten about it. Luckily for me, this error in my judgment was pointed out to me long before the project got off the ground. To make a long story short, I eventually killed the project altogether.
What makes something like cryptomnesia so scary is that the writer is clueless about any wrongdoing until it’s pointed out by another person. Even in fiction and poetry, this can be a problem. Like most writers, I do a lot of reading and my biggest fear is inadvertently taking an idea from something I’ve read in the past and then thinking it’s original.
I think the best way to fight plagiarism and the lesser-known cryptomnesia is by simple vigilance and doing your research properly. This also makes it extremely important to have a second, or even a third, pair of eyes read over your work before handing it in to the professor or submitting it to the publisher. Just remember that plagiarism isn’t taken lightly by anyone, nor should it be, and there’s nothing that can ruin a career faster than being accused of copying another work without proper citations.
And on that note, here’s a link to the full article:
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