Final Update on Blog Plagarisim

You don’t need permission to reproduce the emails here, or anywhere. You were a party of the communication and unless you had explicitly agreed to keeping that a secret, you can go ahead and do whatever you like with that.

Also, that guy calls himself a journalist? And even you call him a journalist? He can’t even compose a sentence correctly!

I had to conduct a “plagiarism bootcamp” session after several of my students attempted to pass off some (easy to locate) online journalism as their own writing. They forgot that their instructor (me) is an online writer and quite aware of their abilities. When a student who cannot string a sentence together gives you perfect, professional quality writing, it’s usually a good reason to investigate. I would just take the most professional looking bits and dump them into Google. Whole sentences. Voila … up they’d pop. The sad part is when you see that they took more than a few words but several paragraphs worth of information.

I’ve also dealt with student plagiarists who borrowed “structure”. They assumed that changing a few words here and there was alright. I had to explain that any use of another person’s stuff – including ideas and structure – without attribution (that’s the important part) is stealing.

One instructor I knew would do a talk where she’d begin the class by choosing a student at random and taking their bag off their desk. She wouldn’t say anything, just take the bag and put it by her desk. The student would invariably say “um, why did you take my bag?” … “Your bag? This is my bag!” … and then she’d pretend to argue how it was her bag, etc. And on to the lecture on plagiarism.

Here’s a source I used to explain what plagiarism is. It’s a handy definition:
http://www.turnitin.com/research_site/e_what_is_plagiarism.html

I’ve also written extensively in my blog about the importance of attribution. It’s just basic manners, really. When I wrote the following post, a new variation of plagiarism was emerging in the blogosphere. My friend calls it “reblogging”. This appears to be what happened with your post. Here’s my post with a link to his (on the reblogging problem):
http://chandrasutra.typepad.com/chandra/2005/09/attribution_ope.html

Here’s that plagiarism link again:
http://www.turnitin.com/research_site/e_what_is_plagiarism.html

They cite Merriam Webster as their source for the following definitions of plagiarism:

“According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to “plagiarize” means

1) to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own
2) to use (another’s production) without crediting the source
3) to commit literary theft
4) to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”

Here are some of the things I do to indicate attribution in my blog posts:

1) Always quote secondary source information (i.e., material you’re citing in your post)
2) Indent the passage you’re quoting so it clearly and definitively stands out from your own writing
3) Always provide a link to the original, preferably in the first reference to the source (which should really appear before the quoted text (or, in brackets at the end of the quoted text)
4) Link the entire passage to the source (optional)
5) Link and bold the entire passage (optional) * I generally do this as well as quote and cite the source.

In my opinion, the more clearly you highlight quoted material, the more integrity you have as a writer/blogger. The more you attempt to integrate secondary information into your own prose – especially if you simply drop the text in without quoting or indenting – the more you are advertising your insecurities, lack of ethics and disregard for the other writers hard work and talent. I say insecurity because you have to be a very insecure/desperate person/writer to feel the need to pass off another person’s expression as your own. Either that or the plagiarist is just a totally stupid dope who doesn’t even think about these things.

Imitation is the best form of flattery. By plagiarizing your blog post that gentleman was only trying to flatter you. So why are you so furious about it!

Ah I guess this is a typical case of “much ado over nothing”.

“By plagiarizing your blog post that gentleman was only trying to flatter you.”

Yes, and by that logic, stealing in all forms is the most devoted form of flattery. I’m sure you would feel right complimented if somebody ripped off your car? Afterall, it would be the very warmest way of saying, “hey, that’s a really nice car!” …