Plagiarism

Global Plagiarism -- taking it all!

Plagiarism is from the Latin word plagiarus which means kidnapping -- taking someone else's property. There are three types of plagiarism: global, patchwork, and incremental. Global plagiarism is kidnapping the whole piece of work, lock-stock-and barrel. This would be if I gave a fig research paper done by a botanist to my students and told them it was my work.

Patchwork plagiarism is kidnapping done in pieces -- a little bit here, a little bit there, much like a patchwork quilt. It would be akin to me using pieces of the botanist's paper and weaving them with my own thoughts.

Oops, I forgot!

Turned upside-down, this heart would look like a patchwork fig. When working on a big project, it IS tempting to take short cuts to get done faster but other people's work needs to be sourced, even if it takes extra time to do so.

Incremental plagiarism is the one most students do, even innocently. It is using work without citing. This is done through forgetfulness or in thinking Fair Use Laws are in place. In any event, citing anything someone else has generated saves a figgy person from going blue in the face from embarrassment.

Common knowledge information? That is information so well known in the general population that it does not need to be cited.


Practical tips to avoid plagiarism:

 1) Create a distinct sentence structure,  

2) Check the paraphrase against the original text 

and 3) Acknowledge the source.