According to Plagiarism.org, plagiarism is not just borrowing someone's ideas or stealing them to use for oneself. Plagiarism can be committed in any of the following situations:
- Submitting work by someone else as one's own
- Integrating someone's ideas into a body of work without giving proper credit
- Incorrectly sourcing information
- Paraphrasing without giving credit
This is in contrast to copyright infringement because copyright infringement is when proper credit is given to a piece of work, but it was distributed without the permission of its creator.
For example, if an aspiring musician wanted to impress his girlfriend by recording a song he "wrote just for her" on his new CD that was actually "Maybe I'm Just Tired," by the band As Tall as Lions, then that musician would be committing plagiarism by recording the song under his own name.
A Plagiarism Case in Recent Journalism
According to a June 16, 2003 article on the History News Network's website, hnn.us, by Rick Shenkman, Rick Black had published two very interesting essays in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about Iraq. They stood out as being above and beyond the usual quality for a paper that size.
Not long after, a journalist named Glenn Mitchell published two essays about Iraq for Melbourne, Australia's Herald Sun. It, as well, was of top quality. Though worded very differently, the content was the same. Mitchell even sourced the same Minnesota professor as Black, but not Black himself.
Upon further inspection by the staff at HNN, Glenn Mitchell's work was typically in the lifestyle section. It could be possible that he was tired of that gig and wanted to move into another area of writing. In the end, he was reprimanded, but not fired, for his actions.
Penalties for Plagiarism
Penalties for plagiarism vary. Our Lady of the Lake College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, allows for professors who find plagiarizers to use their own discretion in correcting them. If they choose to handle it at their level, then grades could be lowered to an F, or the student can re-do the assignment.
If students are sent higher to be corrected, then they could be restricted to certain areas of campus or put on probation if not let off with a written warning.
Professionally, plagiarism punishments are more severe. Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian, author, and Pulitzer Prize winner had committed plagiarism in her 1987 book, The Fitzgeralds & The Kennedys.
Lynne McTaggart, author of Kathleen Kennedy: Her Life and Times had contacted Goodwin on the matter, because, although her "footnotes repeatedly cited Ms. Taggart's work," she did not put quotation marks around certain phrases, the result being that people would believe that those statements were her own original thoughts, when they had really belonged to someone else.
More than 10 years later, the plagiarism was uncovered again by The Weekly Standard, a neoconservative opinion paper, and was reported by placing passages from the two books side-by-side. This was followed up by a Jan. 22, 2002 article in Slate magazine called "Doris Kearns Goodwin, Liar," by Timothy Noah.
According to a March 5, 2002 report on CNN, Goodwin, in the fallout of the controversy, had discontinued her role on PBS' "Newshour With Jim Lehrer" and "had also had an invitation to speak at the University of Delaware withdrawn."
It is not possible to know just how much income Goodwin has lost since 2002, but some might say that it was income she never should have had given the conduct that led to her illustrious career.
Plagiarism is a serious offense where people take other people's intellectual property. In the age of information, it will be found far faster than in the past. The results are heavy in the professional world where competition is more than happy to replace a cheater, and, in doing so, earn the honor, prestige, and money they deserve.
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