Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Plagiarism is re-use in one paper of material that has appeared in another,
without appropriate acknowledgement. The theft may involve ideas, illustrations,
results, text, or even whole papers; and includes, not just copying from published
papers, but from material in electronic form, such as Web pages, news articles, or
email. By plagiarizing, a researcher hopes to obtain credit for work that has already
been published, and not necessarily by someone else (the issue of self-plagiarism is
discussed in the next section). However, while some people do make a deliberate
decision to steal and there is a complex range of factors that lead people to pla-
giarize, one cause seems particularly common: misjudgement by an inexperienced
researcher.
Such misjudgements can arise when a research student is unaware of appropriate
academic style. For example, a researcher investigating B-trees may find an elegant
illustration in a textbook and decide that it is perfect for a forthcoming paper; but
copying this illustration (either by reproducing it or by imitating it) is plagiarism.
Similarly, a researcher describing B-trees may feel that a paragraph in a reference
cannot be improved on; but copying it verbatim is plagiarism. Even a close paraphrase
of it is likely to be plagiarism.
Another form of misjudgement is inappropriate or inadequate citation. Suppose
that Barlman and Trey (2001) wrote the following:
The impact of viruses has become a major issue in many large organizations,
but most still rely on individual users maintaining virus definitions, with no
internal firewalls to protect one user from another. However, any structure is
only as strong as its weakest link; these organizations are highly vulnerable.
It would then be considered plagiarism to write the following:
Viruses have become a major issue in many large organizations, but most
organizations still rely on users maintaining virus definitions on their indi-
vidual computers, with no internal firewalls to protect one computer from
another. However, any structure is only as strong as its weakest link; these
organizations are highly vulnerable to infection (Barlman and Trey 2001).
In this example, a citation is given, but it isn't made clear that the citation refers to the
whole block of text. Also, there is nothing to indicate that the wording is unoriginal—
despite a few small changes, the text is copied. If the wording or the sense of the
original text is required, it would instead be appropriate to write something like the
following:
As discussed by Barlman and Trey (2001), who investigated the impact of
viruses in large organizations, “most still rely on individual users maintaining
virus definitions, with no internal firewalls to protect one user from another.
However, any structure is only as strong as its weakest link; these organiza-
tions are highly vulnerable.”
