It was unlike a normal working day today. Best described as a harrowing day. After a presentation in the morning and staring at bland looking excel sheets all day long with a couple of meetings thrown in between, I sat down with a hot cup of soup (Oh, I forgot to mention that I was running an unusually bad cold) to answer all my pending mails. Little did I know that it would turn into a tumultuous (and frustrating…) , back and forth, ride between my Outlook (this was before the time I SWITCHED!) and Google windows to check what had been copied from where. And to my utter disappointment nearly nine out of ten times the trip to Google produced a positive result.
I sat confused. Is technology creating a “lazy” generation or just that plagiarism was never easier... could it also be ignorance about what really is plagiarism...?, or were we all believing that copying from multiple sources is research! Hmmm...
And that’s when the Julie Andrews’ “sound of music” rang in my ear. “Lets start from the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
What is Plagiarism?
According to the Cambridge International Dictionary of English, to plagiarize is to use (another person’s idea or a part of their work) and pretend that it is your own. Dig a little deeper and you will realize that some of the synonyms for a plagiarist can sound rather nasty. (Go look up a Thesaurus yourself.) To cut a long story short, plagiarism is copying someone's work as passing it of, as your own. It could be data points or the use of someone else’s language without the use of quotation marks. Submitting the same assignment to different teachers without their knowledge also passes off as plagiarism. And ignorance of the law is no excuse; therefore unintentional copying also translates to plagiarism.
Avoiding Plagiarism
A few precautions here and a few there will save you the embarrassment of being labeled a thief.
Always…
…cite the source (See the end of the post on how to cite sources)
…rewrite the concepts in your own words. Do not copy the grammatical structure either. And it is not necessary to cite very well known facts. For instance it may be appropriate to omit crediting the Five Forces Model to Michael Porter. It’s a well-known fact!
…remember not to COPY!!
Books
Kotler, Philip (2000), Marketing Management. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Articles
Baker, Walter, Marn Mike and Zawada Craig (2001), “Price Smarter on the Net”, Harvard Business Review, February, 122-127.
Websites
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/?referral=7855 (Accessed on May 22, 2004)
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