The word "plagiarism" strikes fear in the hearts of writers and readers alike (as it should). However, in general conversation, the definition can still be quite murky. What actually counts as plagiarism? Why does it happen? How can one avoid doing it by accident? Today, we're talking about Creatinuum Episode 13, Cite Your Sources: On Plagiarism and its Potent Effects.
For college students, plagiarism has been ingrained as a serious offense. Professors and instructors constantly remind their students to never lift a work word for word, or to remember citing their sources. These reminders often come with threats of failing grades and come with instructions on how to cite and create bibliographies, which will depend on the style guide one is using.
Citation is important because it gives credit to the original owner of an idea or piece of knowledge. It recognizes the effort and the hard work they put into gaining the results that you are now able to use in other thought processes.
In this episode, we also touch a little on fan culture and how certain Intellectual Property (IP) owners prevent the creation of transformative works. Although these works, such as fanfiction, are protected by Fair Use, the law also states that original property owners may request the removal of things they deem to infringe on their copyright. More than once, fandoms and fan work creators have borne the brunt of this.
Even with intellectual property that isn't necessarily text-based, such as theories within a certain field, it is important to give credit original creator of the theory one is expanding or even disproving, so as to avoid plagiarism.
Aside from works and ideas being stolen, another thing that gets stolen is someone's voice. Each author, be it in fiction or the academe, has their own unique writing voice. This lends a consistent style throughout the body of work. When a text is created from a combination of different voices, the work may appear disjointed and may not make sense together, because the voices of the stolen work are battling against one another.
In the academic setting, plenty of students still neglect citing their sources or paraphrasing cited text, despite plenty of reminders to do so. This is perhaps from a lack of understanding of the stakes involved when plagiarizing. One may not realize how grave the situation is until they've already done it. Therefore, it is important to emphasize not only that one should avoid plagiarism, but also why they should avoid it.
Moreover, it is also important to understand why students plagiarize despite being told not to. Perhaps the plagiarism is a result of the fear of not meeting deadlines, or that they were just not properly taught how to cite sources and write bibliographies, or how their future can be affected by this seemingly harmless offense.
At the end of the day, plagiarized work is stolen work. Taking credit for someone else's hard work not only is not only a rude thing to do, but would also reflect poorly on your character. It might take you some extra time to go back, look for the source, and paraphrase a passage, but no amount of laziness is worth getting suspended at school, or worse, being served court papers.
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