Plagiarism

[Spicata]

As far as what I've found to define plagerism on the internet, it seems like this is. I just want to ask real people to make sure.


Say I write an article, entitled "The Top 100 Reasons Men get Married", followed by a numbered list of said reasons....

Then, another person finds my article, cites it, and writes their own article, calling it "The Top 100 Reasons Women get Married", followed by their own numbered list

After this, their version becomes so popular that it gets published in a well known magazine and paid for it, never acknowledging my work as a source.

Are their actions legal, or is it plagerism? If it is plagerism, is that because they paraphrased my article or is it because they did not credit mine when they got published?

Thanks again!

[ashman165]

As far as what I've found to define plagerism on the internet, it seems like this is. I just want to ask real people to make sure.


Say I write an article, entitled "The Top 100 Reasons Men get Married", followed by a numbered list of said reasons....

Then, another person finds my article, cites it, and writes their own article, calling it "The Top 100 Reasons Women get Married", followed by their own numbered list

After this, their version becomes so popular that it gets published in a well known magazine and paid for it, never acknowledging my work as a source.

Are their actions legal, or is it plagerism? If it is plagerism, is that because they paraphrased my article or is it because they did not credit mine when they got published?

Thanks again!

I'm sorry I'm not quite following what you mean. So, here's my understanding:

You write an article and call it "x", and then have a list of data relevant to "x". Then later on, let's say it's me, you see an article called "not x", with my own list of data relevant to "not x". Why would I need to cite your work for my own? Granted, it's in the same style, but you can't plagiarize a style. Or, if you can, then you've done it as well as you're hardly the first to come up with the "top 100" list of anything.

It isn't a paraphrase of your article, to my mind, if they're not taking your actual thoughts and re-telling them without a citation to you. Indeed, this other person is talking about a completely different topic altogether than you are, but with a similar style.

[Spicata]

If you mean "x" represents "men" and "not x" represents "women" in my example, no that is not the part that I thought was plagiarism. I recognise that changing it from men to women signifies a difference in the two bodies of work.

What I questioned was everything about it that stayed *exactly* the same. I was uncertain about the format but I took a stab at asking anyway, simply because I wasn't sure how intricate the laws are.

It is the fact that the person would have copied the title of my work, almost verbatim, and changing only one word. My understanding was that this would be illegal.

I assumed that if this person simply took on the same subject matter, that it would be legal as long as it was not worded the same way. For instance, I would never question if the person responded to my article by writing one that was similar, without so much word-for-word, such as "100 reasons Women tie the Knot". That might make an author wince, but I wouldn't think it would be grounds for a suit.

I'm mostly going on what I was taught in school. With research papers we were told that even using the same title for our manuscript as another student would get us in serious trouble, even if we changed one word. Could have been scare tactics, I don't know.

[KeyWestDan]

If it is copied with only minor changes, it would be a copyright infringement.

That said, lists and data or facts are not copyrightable generally.

The way you express those facts is protected. It always helps to have a pronounced writing style with a good vocabulary. If someone copies it without re-writing in their own words then you probably can convince a jury or even a judge that it is plagarism.

Of course, in the example you give, that has already been done to death, so if you wrote such an article, maybe someone else would accuss you of copyright infringement. Those types of articles though are pretty much throwaways in the publishing world.

It is not just the words, the way it is presented is part of the copyright and if someone stole your web page code as well, that would really seal the deal.

All that said, if you wanted to do anything, it also assumes you have the money, knowledge and time to pursue it. Nine times out of ten the person you will be suing will not have anything you can get even if you win a judgment.

Then there are the people who will steal your entire web site. Then Google sees your site as duplicate content and removes it from the index rewarding the pirate.

[ashman165]

If you mean "x" represents "men" and "not x" represents "women" in my example, no that is not the part that I thought was plagiarism. I recognise that changing it from men to women signifies a difference in the two bodies of work.

What I questioned was everything about it that stayed *exactly* the same. I was uncertain about the format but I took a stab at asking anyway, simply because I wasn't sure how intricate the laws are.

It is the fact that the person would have copied the title of my work, almost verbatim, and changing only one word. My understanding was that this would be illegal.

I assumed that if this person simply took on the same subject matter, that it would be legal as long as it was not worded the same way. For instance, I would never question if the person responded to my article by writing one that was similar, without so much word-for-word, such as "100 reasons Women tie the Knot". That might make an author wince, but I wouldn't think it would be grounds for a suit.

I'm mostly going on what I was taught in school. With research papers we were told that even using the same title for our manuscript as another student would get us in serious trouble, even if we changed one word. Could have been scare tactics, I don't know.

What you're taught in high school is not to use someone else's work without a citation to them. X and not x can be anything you like; you're claiming it's the changing of one word in the title. So what? It's a word that changes the entire discussion; one is about men while the other is about women. This is what makes talking about this abstractly so difficult; what are the 100 reasons? They can't all be the same.

Anyway, if you read someone's words and take from it an idea, put them in a bibliography so others can kind of follow along. If you use someone else's words and fail to cite them, then it is plagiarism. In school, at least for my students, that is an immediately failing grade for the term and a letter in their official file. It isn't a scare tactic, per se; though I hope people will consider the consequence sufficiently large for it to dissuade them. The reason the consequence is as great as it is is because in academia, one's work should strive to be as transparent, as honest, and forthright as possible: plagiarism is an out and out lie. It is literally taking another's work and claiming it as your own. These are the precise kind of people we do not want in academic circles; if they'll take someone's work as their own, who's to say they just won't make it up or lie about something else important?

[Spicata]

I was referring to college actually, as I didn't write research papers in HS. We were told to change more than one word or it would be plagiarism, even in the title. If I wrote "The Effects of Raw Sugar on Female Lab Rats in Low Light Conditions", another student would have recieved an F if she wrote "The Effects of Raw Sugar on Female Lab Rats under Low Light Conditions". So if that's not plagiarism I would consider that a scare tactic.

Like I said I'm not arguing that the content of the second text is different. I was referring to the exact phrasing re-used in the title. It sounds like you're saying it's not plagiarism to use the exact phrasing as long as it points to a different content.

Just out of curiosity, is that true even if someone re-used a very specific title? Like if I wrote a book called "What I really really despise about living under a filthy, pigeon-infested bridge in Brooklyn" and someone then wrote "What I really really despise about living under a filthy, pigeon-infested bridge in Queens" they are still in the clear?

[ashman165]

I was referring to college actually, as I didn't write research papers in HS. We were told to change more than one word or it would be plagiarism, even in the title. If I wrote "The Effects of Raw Sugar on Female Lab Rats in Low Light Conditions", another student would have recieved an F if she wrote "The Effects of Raw Sugar on Female Lab Rats under Low Light Conditions". So if that's not plagiarism I would consider that a scare tactic.

I don't know about it being plagiarism so much as bad writing. When there are quotation marks around something, the presumption is that it's verbatim, unless there's some kind of editing notation indicating words were changed to make it grammatically correct for the structure of the sentence you're putting it into.

It's like quoting Bill Clinton's I didn't have sexual relations with that woman speech and using quotation marks to say: "I did have sexual relations with that woman". It might not be your intent to have changed his meaning, but it isn't a quote at all; it's bad writing, which is a prime area of focus when reviewing a research paper.

Plagiarism is when, let's say, someone says ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country without giving credit to JFK. What is happening in that sentence is I haven't quoted anything, or indicated that I'm paraphrasing someone, or indicated that someone else has said it first. I'm passing it off as my own original thought, claiming that it's I who thought it up. That's dishonest, and that's plagiarism.

Like I said I'm not arguing that the content of the second text is different. I was referring to the exact phrasing re-used in the title. It sounds like you're saying it's not plagiarism to use the exact phrasing as long as it points to a different content.

No, I'm saying that in the example you gave the two things aren't the same. They're nowhere in the same ballpark of being the same; one is about men, and the other is about everyone except for men. How can it be a plagiarized title when the focus of the writing isn't remotely similar? Plagiarism would be if I took your work (same title) and used it and then used your same text (the actual body of the work) and claimed it as my own original work.

Just out of curiosity, is that true even if someone re-used a very specific title? Like if I wrote a book called "What I really really despise about living under a filthy, pigeon-infested bridge in Brooklyn" and someone then wrote "What I really really despise about living under a filthy, pigeon-infested bridge in Queens" they are still in the clear?

That depends, but in general a title can't be copyrighted. But depending on the text in the second book, it might be considered a derivative work (which I'm a little sketchy on how that actually works).

[Spicata]

What? I used quotation marks to indicate that I was giving an example. They weren't supposed to represent a quote. I thought I made it clear they represented an example of a title of literature. The quotation marks weren't literal, nor did I expect anyone to think I was using quotes as an example of a title. The comparrison is what I was going for.

Women are not "everyone except for men". Men and Women are people, and the subject matter is the same, hence the title. The topic of why people marry is within the same ballpark, no matter how different the reasons are. The topic is exactly the same. Only the people the topic is about changed.

Thanks anyway.

[KeyWestDan]

This is a legal forum. I was referring to copyright law and such.

This is not a forum for you to waste our time trying to figure out what you can get by with in some college class.

Just do your own work and you won't have to worry about it.

Instead of being long-winded here, get to work on your own paper.

[ashman165]

What? I used quotation marks to indicate that I was giving an example. They weren't supposed to represent a quote. I thought I made it clear they represented an example of a title of literature. The quotation marks weren't literal, nor did I expect anyone to think I was using quotes as an example of a title. The comparrison is what I was going for.

Women are not "everyone except for men". Men and Women are people, and the subject matter is the same, hence the title. The topic of why people marry is within the same ballpark, no matter how different the reasons are. The topic is exactly the same. Only the people the topic is about changed.

Thanks anyway.

The subject matter is most assuredly not the same. Men and women are both humans, yes. They are both animals. They are both biologic forms. They are both citizens of a country. What they are not, however, is the same thing.

I realize you were using quotes for that purpose in your example. I wasn't addressing that. I was discussing how things are quoted in text.

Anyway, it would seem my efforts here are in vain so I'll just direct you to a dictionary.