Let's get serious about plagiarism
Plagiarism, as Wikipedia's article on the topic explains, "is the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work." At best it is intellectual sloppiness and at worst outright theft.[1] As Robin Levin Penslar notes in Research Ethics: Cases and Materials, "The real penalty for plagiarism is the abhorrence of the community of scholars."[2] It can bring a community into disrepute. Wikipedia's editors should create their own articles, not adopt the work of others. But while this is an easy approach to recommend, plagiarism may not be as simple as it first seems—it is often committed inadvertently. The best way to prevent plagiarism is to understand clearly what it is, how to avoid it, and how to address it when it appears.
Understanding plagiarism
Wikipedia is not a primary source and contains no original research; therefore, everything that appears on Wikipedia should be rooted in a reliable source. The problem with plagiarism is not that it involves the use of other people's ideas, but rather that other people's words or ideas are misrepresented—specifically that they are presented as though they were "an editor's own original work". Even if contributors provide a citation for a sentence, it may still be plagiarism if they do not clearly indicate with quotation marks the duplication of the source's wording. Citations are universally understood as indicating a source for information, not as a license to copy the original wording.
There are three major ways to plagiarize:
- Failing to acknowledge the source of quotations and borrowed ideas;
- Failing to clearly mark copied language with quotation marks;
- Failing to sufficiently adapt a summary or paraphrase and thus following the wording of a source too closely[3]
Plagiarism and copyright infringement
Plagiarism is not the same as copyright infringement: material can be plagiarized from both copyrighted and public domain sources.[4] One report about a plagiarism scandal on Wikipedia claimed that "Wikipedia editors ... declared a handful [of the allegedly plagiarized articles] to be OK because copied passages came from the public domain."[5] If this was indeed the reaction of Wikipedia editors, they were mistaken. To clarify this, think of the famous opening line of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice (1813): "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."[6] The text of this novel, like the text of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, is in the public domain. However, these are Austen's words and even though no one owns the copyright to them any longer, we need to acknowledge that the wording is hers. By inserting this sentence without quotation marks into an article, Wikipedia editors would be plagiarizing Austen.[7] Apart from the ethical need to credit her for her words, Wikipedia has a scholarly duty to inform its readers of the source of such a sentence, including the page number where the sentence can be found in the source.
Wikipedia policies say much about copyright violation, but far less about plagiarism. The guideline on the topic was written only last year and has yet to be adopted by the community. However, Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales took a clear stand on the issue in 2005: "Let me say quite firmly that for me, the legal issues [surrounding plagiarism] are important, but far far far more important are the moral issues. We want to be able, all of us, to point at Wikipedia and say: we made it ourselves, fair and square."[8]
What to cite: the "common knowledge" exception
Not every fact contained in a Wikipedia article requires attribution. When a fact is "common knowledge"—that is, generally known—it is not plagiarism to repeat it, even if contributors learned it from a specific reference. For example, it is commonly known that Emily Dickinson published very few poems during her lifetime.[9] Generally, if information is mentioned in many sources, especially general reference sources, and easily found, it is considered common knowledge. It is also acceptable to reproduce non-creative lists of basic information, such as an alphabetical directory of actors appearing in a film. While Wikipedia's verifiability policy encourages the citing of such information, a failure to do so is not plagiarism.
Although common knowledge and non-creative lists of basic facts do not "belong" to a source and do not require attribution to avoid plagiarism, less commonly known information, opinions and creative text do. Likewise, the creative presentation even of common knowledge, belongs to its original author. Contributors can safely re-use the fact, but not the language unless it is a title, as for a job or a creative work, or utterly devoid of creativity, such as a common phrase. From a copyright standpoint, the level of creativity required to claim ownership is minimal. The United States Supreme Court has indicated that under US copyright law, which governs copyright matters on Wikipedia, "[t]he vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, 'no matter how crude, humble or obvious' it might be."[10] Similarly, most text will be creative enough that its replication will be plagiarism. Accordingly, while text such as "Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830" can be copied without quotation marks, care must be taken not to rely too much on the presumption that text is not creative. Further, one cannot copy an entire source in this way, claiming that it is "common knowledge" or uncreative text. In such cases, it can come down to the length of a string of exactly copied words; good editors get a feel for where it's starting to be dishonest not to attribute.
Less commonly known facts or interpretations of facts must be cited to avoid plagiarism, and creative text must either be quoted or properly revised.
Avoiding plagiarism
To construct articles that read smoothly while still remaining faithful to their sources, it is essential to learn how to properly use other people's ideas and words. Wikipedia contributors need to know when to give credit, how to adapt source material so that it can be used in an article, and when to use quotations.
Quotation
When editors want to use verbatim excerpts of a source, there is one simple way to avoid plagiarism: use direct quotations. The words from the source should be reproduced exactly as they appear in the original, enclosed within quotation marks, and identified by an inline citation after the quotation. However, direct quotations should not be overused. They run the risk of copyright infringement if the sources used are not free. Wikipedia's non-free content guidelines offer some guidance on when to use direct quotations and remind us that the "[e]xtensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited." But even when free sources are used, the overuse of direct quotation produces articles that are simply collections of quotations. The risk is a fragmentary effect in which the broader context of the quoted material is unclear, and readers are left to piece together the information, which often involves shifts in writing style.
Quotations should generally be used in the following situations:
- "When language is especially vivid or expressive"[12]
- "When exact wording is needed for technical accuracy"[12]
- "When it is important to let the debaters of an issue explain their positions in their own words"[12]
- "When the words of an important authority lend weight to an argument"[12]
- "When the language of a source is the topic of your discussion"[12]
Adapting sources: paraphrasing and summarizing
Source text is usually adapted using a combination of paraphrase and summary. These two styles generally differ in their level of detail. A summary is more likely to be used for longer expanses of text and to cover only the major points in a passage, omitting or touching lightly on examples or definitions; a summary is generally expected to be considerably shorter than the original source. By contrast, paraphrasing is more likely to be closer to the original and may be nearly as long as or even longer than the source.
Adapting source text, whether by paraphrasing or summarizing, is a valuable skill, and contributors to Wikipedia need to be alert to the potential for inadvertent plagiarism. Many editors believe that by changing a few words here or there—or even by changing a great number of the words found in the original source—they have avoided plagiarism. This is not necessarily the case. Nor does the mere rearrangement of clauses, sentences, or paragraphs avoid the problem.
- Problems in paraphrasing
In this example, Wikipedia's article text is an attempt at paraphrasing the source. However, almost all of the original word choice, word order and sentence structure is retained.
- "A statement from the receiver, David Carson of Deloitte, confirmed that 480 of the 670 employees have been made redundant ... At least 100 Waterford Crystal employees are refusing to leave the visitors' gallery at the factory tonight and are staging an unofficial sit-in. The employees say they will not be leaving until they meet with Mr Carson. There were some scuffles at one point and a main door to the visitors' centre was damaged ... Local Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Kelly, who is one of those currently occupying the visitors' gallery, said the receiver had told staff he would not close the company while there were interested investors."
- "A statement issued by the receiver, Deloitte's David Carson, confirmed that, of the 670 employees, 480 of them would be laid off. The workers responded angrily to this unexpected decision and at least 100 of them began an unofficial sit-in in the visitors' gallery at the factory that night. They insisted they would refuse to leave until they had met with Carson. Following the revelations, there was a minor scuffle during which the main door to the visitors' centre was damaged. Local Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Kelly was amongst those who occupied the visitors' gallery."
Analysis:
- "A statement issued by the receiver, Deloitte's David Carson, confirmed that, of the 670 employees, 480 of them would be laid off" vs. "A statement from the receiver, David Carson of Deloitte, confirmed that 480 of the 670 employees have been made redundant". – The structure of Wikipedia's statement is essentially the same as the original. Changing a single word and slightly reordering one phrase is not enough to constitute a paraphrase.
- "They insisted they would refuse to leave until they had met with Carson" vs. "The employees say they will not be leaving until they meet with Mr Carson". – The structure of this sentence is the same.
- "there was a minor scuffle during which the main door to the visitors' centre was damaged" vs. "There were some scuffles at one point and a main door to the visitors' centre was damaged". – The structure and language of the two sentences are the same.
- "Local Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Kelly was amongst those who occupied the visitors' gallery" vs. "Local Sinn Féin Councillor Joe Kelly, who is one of those currently occupying the visitors' gallery". – This slight rewording does not change the fact that the underlying structure and language are the same. Minor changes, such as "was amongst those" --> "is one of those" and "occupied" --> "currently occupying", are not enough to constitute an original rewriting of the passage.
Good adaptation practice
In terms of both plagiarism and copyright, the author of a text not only "owns" the precise, creative language he or she uses, but less tangible creative features of presentation, which may incorporate the structure of the piece and the choice of facts. In terms of plagiarism, but not copyright, the author also "owns" the facts or his or her interpretation of them, unless these are, as mentioned above, common knowledge. Revising to avoid plagiarism means completely restructuring a source in word choice and arrangement while giving due credit for the ideas and information taken from it.
In this paraphrase, the language and structure of the passage has been significantly altered, making it an original expression of the ideas. The ideas have, of course, been properly credited.
Source:
- "In earlier times, surveillance was limited to the information that a supervisor could observe and record firsthand and to primitive counting devices. In the computer age surveillance can be instantaneous, unblinking, cheap, and, maybe most importantly, easy." — From Carol Botan and Mihaela Vorvoreanu, "What do Employees Think about Electronic Surveillance at Work"? p. 126[13]
Paraphrase:
- "Scholars Carl Botan and Mihaela Vorvoreanu claim that the nature of workplace surveillance has changed over time. Before the arrival of computers, managers could collect only small amounts of information about their employees based on what they saw or heard. However, because computers are now standard workplace technology, employers can monitor employees efficiently (126)."[13]
This adaptation, from the featured article about Thomas Eakins' The Swimming Hole, displays attribution of opinion and uses a combination of paraphrase and quotation:
- The Swimming Hole represented the full range of Eakins' techniques and academic principles. He used life study, photography, wax studies, and landscape sketches to produce a work that manifested his interest in the human form.[14] Lloyd Goodrich (1897–1987) believed the work was "Eakins's most masterful use of the nude", with the solidly conceived figures perfectly integrated into the landscape, an image of subtle tonal construction and one of the artist's "richest pieces of painting".[15] Another biographer, William Innes Homer (b. 1929), was more reserved and described the poses of the figures as rigidly academic. Homer found inconsistencies in paint quality and atmospheric effect, and wrote that the painting was unsuccessful in reconciling antique and naturalistic ideals. For him, "it is as though these nudes had been abruptly transplanted from the studio into nature".[16]
Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast rule for how much revision is necessary to avoid plagiarizing. In evaluating copyright concerns, the United States courts adopt a "substantial similarity" test that compares the pattern and sequence of two works, finding such similarity where "the ordinary observer [reading two works], unless he set out to detect the disparities, would be disposed to overlook them, and regard their aesthetic appeal as the same."[17] Even if all of the language is revised, a court may find copyright infringement under the doctrine of "comprehensive non-literal similarity" if "the pattern or sequence of the two works is similar".[18] Likewise, plagiarism may exist if readers comparing the two works would come away with a sense that one is copied from or too heavily based on another.
Editors should always compare their final drafts with the sources they have used to make sure that they have not accidentally come too close in language and structure or failed to attribute when necessary.
Research and writing methods: tips for avoiding plagiarism
One way editors can minimize the tendency to reuse text is to not copy and paste text into their working drafts. Instead, editors should assemble and organize their notes, excerpts, and other source materials by topic. This can be done either in hard copy or by using an electronic filing system. Editors should then read and absorb what the sources say and proceed to writing a draft version, in their own words, of each topic. These drafts can be assembled according to the editor's own organizational schema. There are a number of ways to organize material; editors should not slavishly follow a source's structure, either in overall organization, or in the composition and arrangement of sentences and paragraphs within each section. This method reduces the temptation (and makes it harder) to adopt verbatim language and organization from the sources.
At the same time, when taking notes from a source for their own use, editors may find it useful to take them verbatim, with quotation marks, if they will not have access to that source as they are writing their final draft. If a different language is used in note-taking, an editor may find him or herself accidentally restoring some of the author's original words when constructing a draft. Being able to see at a glance exactly how the source was written can help avoid this.
Use multiple sources, if possible. Editors may find it more difficult to avoid following that text too closely if they rely on only one source, as they will necessarily be limited to those details selected by the author of that original source. It is not impossible to revise and reorganize a single source sufficiently to avoid plagiarism or copyright infringement, but it is more difficult.
Spotting plagiarism
Editors should be careful not to add plagiarized material to Wikipedia, and can help to protect the integrity of the project by spotting plagiarism and helping to correct it. When large sections of a source are copied word-for-word into an article, it is often easy to spot and repair. The use of ideas or uncommon facts without credit, possibly the most common form of plagiarism, can be repaired by sourcing. Detecting and dealing with subtler forms of plagiarism may be more challenging, but is usually possible.
Red flags for plagiarism include:
- Inconsistent authorial voice: Although many articles on Wikipedia are multi-authored, sudden switches in tone throughout an article may still be a sign of plagiarism. For example, if the "History" section in an article on a city sounds like a tourist brochure and the "Climate and geography" section is filled with highly technical and jargon-filled language, readers might suspect that sources have been followed too closely. A particular tip-off is the sudden introduction of sophisticated text or ideas that seem inconsistent with the authorial voice of the material surrounding it.
- Inconsistent language: If the tone of an article or passage is colloquial or does not feel "right"—for example if jargon or idioms are used incorrectly—a source may have been misused.
- Atypical elegance: A reader may have cause for concern if a section of an article seems to have been written "too well". Much writing on Wikipedia is not at the level of professional publications. Therefore, when readers suddenly come across professional-level writing on Wikipedia, with no spelling or grammatical errors, they may want to investigate further. If the article has been extensively copy-edited, such as in undergoing the featured articles process, such polish is in itself less of a red flag, though even extensive copy-editing does not guarantee the absence of plagiarism.
- Rapid maturation: Fully developed articles that appear in very few edits may signal plagiarism. While sometimes editors construct articles in sandboxes or off-wiki, sometimes a sudden maturity of text signals that material has quickly been added without careful attention to the issue of plagiarism.
If you suspect plagiarism, you may wish to start by checking the article's history. If the article has a multi-authored feel but appears to be largely single-authored, there could be reason for concern, as this may suggest a contributor has borrowed too heavily from the diction of multiple sources. It may be worth checking the contribution history of an editor across a number of articles, to see if there is a discernible authorial voice or if there is a pattern of such inconsistency. There may be a history of such issues on the editor's talk page.
Another good starting point is to review the article's sources. Particularly when plagiarism results from misunderstanding—rather than intent to deceive—a contributor may clearly identify the sources from which s/he has plagiarized, and even link to them. If the source is in another language, for instance, the contributor may be under the mistaken belief that the act of translation is a sufficient revision to eliminate concerns of plagiarism. On the contrary, whether or not the work is free, the obligation remains to give credit to authors of foreign language texts for their creative expression, information and ideas, and, if the work is unfree, direct translation is likely to be a copyright violation as well.[19][20] Concerned readers can also use search engines and automated plagiarism detection. When searching manually, it is helpful to isolate small sections of text from an article. However, some results found this way may be from mirrors and forks of Wikipedia itself, particularly if the article is not newly created.
Addressing plagiarism
There are templates such as {{Copypaste}} or {{Close paraphrase}} that are added to the top of a suspect section or article and may draw attention to the problem; concerns might be noted at an appropriate WikiProject or forum. Just as Wikipedia currently has no clear guideline or policy on plagiarism, it has no clear forum for addressing plagiarism concerns. However, Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup stands to assist where plagiarism may co-exist with copyright infringement, and, even where it doesn't, project members may be able to assist with plagiarism.
 | This article or section appears to have been copied and pasted from a source, possibly in violation of a copyright. Please edit this article to remove any non-free copyrighted content and attribute free content correctly. Follow the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. Remove this template after editing. |
If an article seems to follow the language and structure of another work too closely, first consider whether it is a matter of copyright infringement or plagiarism. If the source is not free and the text may represent a legal concern for Wikipedia, follow the procedures set out at Wikipedia's copyright violations policy. If the source is free, steps should be taken to remedy plagiarism. Wikipedia's proposed guideline on plagiarism suggests politely discussing concerns with the contributor. Further steps may need to be taken to address contributors who persist in plagiarism after being made aware of the problem, through Requests for comment or—if the contributor proves disruptive—through a report at the administrator's incidents noticeboard. The plagiarism will also need to be repaired as soon as possible. If it can be attributed, revised or turned into a usable quotation, it should be. If the editor who discovers the problem is unable to repair it or uncertain of how it should be addressed, it should be brought to the attention of other contributors.
As the main page says, Wikipedia is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Anyone can, and should, repair plagiarism.
Links
- WikiProject Copyright Cleanup
- Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing
- Plagiarism.org
- Quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing, Purdue University
Notes
- ^ Leight, David (1999). "Plagiarism as metaphor". In Buranen, Lise; Roy, Alice Myers (eds.). Perspectives on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World. Buffalo: SUNY Press. p. 221. ISBN 0791440796.
- ^ Penslar, Robin Levin (1995). Research ethics: cases and materials. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 148. ISBN 0253209064.
- ^ Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual (5 ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. p. 107. ISBN 0312559933.
- ^ Fishman, Stephen (2008). Public domain: how to find & use copyright-free writings, music, art & more (4th, illustrated revised ed.). Nolo. p. 35. ISBN 1413308589.
To avoid charges of plagiarism, authors of scholarly works ... always give proper credit to the sources of their ideas and facts, as well as any words they borrow. This is so even if the work borrowed from is in the public domain.
- ^ Jesdanun, Anick (4 November 2006). "Wikipedia Critic Finds Copied Passages". The Sydney Morning Herald. Associated Press. Retrieved 6 April 2009.
- ^ Austen, Jane (1914) [First published 1813]. Pride and Prejudice. Chicago: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 1. Retrieved 18 March 2009.
- ^ The requirement for the use of quotation marks on Wikipedia to delineate duplicated public domain text, where attribution is obvious, is disputed. See Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches.
- ^ Wales, Jimmy (28 December 2005). "Comment". Wikipedia. Retrieved 31 March 2009.
- ^ Hacker offers this as an example of common knowledge (p. 107).
- ^ Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, 499 U.S. 340 (United States Supreme Court, 1991).
- ^ Truss, Lynne (2004). Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham. pp. 151–52. ISBN 1592400876.
- ^ a b c d e Hacker, p. 110.
- ^ a b Hacker, p. 109.
- ^ Sewell, Darrel; Kathleen A. Foster; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Musée d'Orsay; Metropolitan Museum of Art (2001). Thomas Eakins. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 100. ISBN 0300091117.
- ^ Goodrich, Lloyd (1982). Thomas Eakins, Volume I. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 239–40. ISBN 0674884906.
- ^ Homer, William Innes (1992). Thomas Eakins: His Life and Work. New York: Abbeville. p. 116. ISBN 1-55859-281-4.
- ^ Peter Pan Fabrics, Inc. v. Martin Weiner Corp., 274 F.2d 487, 489 (2d Cir., 1960).
- ^ Arica v. Palmer, 970 F.2d 106 (2d Cir., 1992).
- ^ United States Copyright Office. "Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92". Retrieved 2009-04-09.
A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.... Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:...(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work....
- ^ Buranen, Lise; Alice Myers Roy (1999). Perspectives on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World. SUNY Press. p. 76. ISBN 0791440796.
... large-scale cribbing of foreign-language texts might occur during the process of translation.... The practice persists even though the most flagrant violators are eventually accused and dismissed from their posts.
Discuss this story
Discussion elsewhere
I just saw the trainwreck that is this page. Ugh. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another trainwreck of a discussion that shows how few people understand what plagiarism is. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Concerns
There have been a number of discussion on the use of public domain material on Wikipedia. There may be hundreds of articles on ships which are, or originated as, verbatim copies of entries from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS). (USS Franklin (CV-13), mentioned on the Main Page in On this day... for 19 March 2009, is one example.) The use of verbatim PD text for such articles, without quotes or inline cites, but with a note at the bottom of the text or in the reference section, has not been considered to be plagiarism. An attempt last fall to exclude new PD-copied articles from eligibility for DYK went nowhere, in part because of the reliance on DANFS by creators of new articles who want DYK credit. Kablammo (talk) 02:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(out indent) Do you think we've struck the right tone in the dispatch or is further refinement required? Awadewit (talk) 19:16, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestions
One way to minimize the tendency to reuse text, is not to copy and paste it on one's screen, as the basis for a working draft. (There have been new articles which obviously were cut and pasted from recent obituaries, and then reworked, often very lightly.) Printing out internet sources, assembling and organizing them, and then writing a draft, reduces the temptation (and makes it harder to) adopt verbatim language from the source. Kablammo (talk) 02:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Foreign languages
Would it be helpful to mention that even translation is not sufficient to avoid plagiarism, as it does not resolve the issue of "use[ing] ... ideas of another author and representat[ing] ... them as one's own original work"? Further, and in the same vein, it might be worth mentioning that we can essentially "plagiarize ourselves" by translating articles across projects. If I recall correctly, this was an issue with a 1964 Gabon coup d'état FAC. Эlcobbola talk 00:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Current example
See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Timing ?
Is there any chance of this being completed for Monday, March 30 ? (Otherwise, I'm going to have to pull something out of a hat.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:50, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thoughts
Hi. :) SandyGeorgia mentioned this to me, and though I don't do as much with plagiarism (by a long shot) as I do with copyright infringement, I wanted to drop in and see if I could offer input. One thing I noted that could be contentious is this: "Very often plagiarism is accidental or inadvertent—it is still plagiarism." I agree with this, as it fits into my understanding of plagiarism, but I have learned that this is not a universally held opinion. In fact, it's fairly hotly contested here by one individual, and I recently ran into another on (I think!) ANI who strongly voiced similar concerns. I don't know how widespread that debate is, but I bring it up in case it's worth a footnote or expansion. I have no experience whatsoever in the writing of the FCDW. :)
Are you aware that there is a Wikipedia essay on close paraphrasing? It's a rather young essay, but might prove helpful. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some overhauling
Hi. Apologies if I've stepped on any toes with my revisions here. I hope that the changes I've got will seem to be in a constructive direction. :) I'm hoping to get some feedback and also to find out if this should address handling problem plagiarists. Is it worth mentioning that repeat offenders may require community intervention? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
←I think that may need some work: "Wikipedia editors should create their own articles, not adopt, adapt, or rewrite the work of others." We actually devote a good bit of this essay explaining precisely how the work of others should be adapted. Telling them not to do that could be confusing. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Disagreement
Less-commonly known facts ... must be cited to avoid plagiarism
This is not necessarily true. That companies often elect to file executive compensation information with the SEC in DEF 14A filings instead of 10-K filings is a "less commonly known fact". It may indeed require citation to be used in Wikipedia (per WP:V, et al), but inclusion of that fact would not be plagiarism. Эlcobbola talk 14:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Decision time
Unless editors involved here tell me this is ready to run this week (April 6, Sunday night/Monday morning), I will submit another Dispatch this week, and run this on April 13. Feedback? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rethinking this: since we want this to get widely viewed, and many people may be on vacation or break this week, it might be better to hold off a week ??? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:05, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion after "publication"
When this piece is "published", will this talk page go with it? If so, it might be a good idea to archive it, discussions prompted by the publication can start afresh. (Discussions here of course will still be accessible in the archive.) And should individual processes and projects be notified, and, if so, how? Kablammo (talk) 18:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Scheduled to publish at The Signpost on April 13: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom; it would be good to have it finished by Friday the 10th. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Plagiarism and copyright infringement: "If this was indeed the reaction of Wikipedia editors, they were mistaken." Is there a source we could cite which would directly support the assertion that use of PD sources is plagiarism?What to cite: the "common knowledge" exception: "Accordingly, while text such as 'Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830' can be copied without quotation marks, care must be taken." This seems to be an incomplete thought. Can it be expanded to state the point directly?Addressing plagiarism-- Would it be better to have the template before the first and second paragraphs, and/(or)with an introductory sentence, to avoid confusion?Attribution
In the past several weeks I have seen an EB1911-based article (John Byng) and a DANFS article (USS Franklin (CV-13)) attract attention because of links from WP:On this day. In each case there was criticism of the tone of the borrowed text (NPOV), and changes to it. Where the original text is not directly cited, but covered only by a template indicating the PD source at the bottom of the article, and uncited changes are made to that original text, does that cause any issues with attribution or license? I recognize this is too fine a detail to deal with in this dispatch, but the answer might affect the discussion. Kablammo (talk) 19:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Adaptation examples
Tony wonders if we can lose one of the examples for length concerns, [2]. I'm inclined to agree. Both are good examples, but cover similar ground. Since example 2 has more analysis, I've cut out example 1, but retained some of the language, which I quite liked. I've also removed the level five header by replacing it with whatever you call that thing that happens when you put ";" before text. :) I've also wikilinked to the article being used as an example. We don't want to embarrass anybody, obviously, but there are copyright issues with reproducing the text here without attribution.
Thoughts? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 11:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
←I know it's incredibly vague. :/ Sorry. I may not be remembering correctly at all, since it's been a while. I'm thinking it was some science-related field. I'm currently doing a google search of Wikipedia to see what I can find for "ban + plagiarism". Maybe it'll turn up. If not, maybe something else will. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
← Moonriddengirl: I think this may be the incident of plagiarism that you're thinking of. Please to enjoy. :) MastCell Talk 18:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
←I've sourced PD. I've added a brief note on foreign language texts, though I did it in the section on spotting plagiarism. I would like to find a more clear citation, but haven't had luck. The one I've got I'd have to reproduce practically a full paragraph to incorporate the word "plagiarism" in conjunction with the problem. Thoughts? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Inlines to be resolved
I'm putting the remaining inline queries here, as they can be hard to follow:
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
←I've taken a stab at it. I had switched the template, but switched it back. {{Close paraphrase}} was written in service to copyright issues and specifies that the source is not free. {{Copypaste}} at least covers both free- and non-free text. Unless the Close paraphrase template is modified, along with the essay it links to, we might want to use the one that covers both. I have pasted the code directly rather than adding the template because we don't want this page to be listed for clean-up with the automatically added categories. Unless pages with this prefix are exempt? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like these two sections are all wrapped up now; shall I archive them now? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice essay
This is a very helpful essay. Perhaps some of it may make its way into the various related "guidelines" like "How to write a great article". I hope the Dispatches section continues to concentrate on content and quality
, instead of featuring interviews of people about their work on Wikipedia. One recent Dispatches interview focused on an editor who I consider to be counterproductive to the entire project, a bully in discussions, and who basically only writes stub and start articles.[Oops, sorry, I was thinking of the project report section of Signpost. -- Ss] So, seeing this good essay by this distinguished group of content experts is very, very welcome. Thank you! -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:45, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]Thanks from me too. Glad that the proposed guideline (Wikipedia:Plagiarism) was mentioned in passing (thought for a moment it had been left out!). I've added a link here from there, and hopefully what has been written here will be incorporated in some form over there. If anyone wants to have a go at reconciling any differences, that would be even better! Carcharoth (talk) 19:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Signpost article takes an extreme position here without crediting other points of view
The Signpost article reads: "If an article seems to follow the language and structure of another work too closely, first consider whether it is a matter of copyright infringement or plagiarism. . . If the source is free, steps should be taken to remedy plagiarism. Wikipedia's proposed guideline on plagiarism suggests politely discussing concerns with the contributor. Further steps may need to be taken to address contributors who persist in plagiarism after being made aware of the problem, through Requests for comment or—if the contributor proves disruptive—through a report at the administrator's incidents noticeboard. The plagiarism will also need to be repaired as soon as possible."
Yet even the proposed plagiarism guideline accepts that attributed imports of PD material are not considered plagiarism: "Assuming that some type of public domain material is available and welcome, a good practice to use when copying free content verbatim is to indicate in the edit summary the source of the material. . . If you do choose to use verbatim material from a public domain source, you should attribute it properly."
Asking people to "remedy" these imports and labeling such contributions as "plagiarism" is ridiculous. That the above opinion is published without acknowledging there is any dissent nor that consensus and long-standing practice at Wikipedia accepts such imports leaves me speechless. Contributions such this does not make me a plagiarist.
Please correct this article to include the long-standing acceptance of PD imports as detailed by the proposed guideline you quote elsewhere in article.--BirgitteSB 20:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(unident) I am claiming the following: Plagiarism is defined within the context of claiming authorship and attributed copying without claiming any credit of authorship is not plagiarism. Nothing more nothing less. This is not plagiarism and neither is this this Nor is any similar edit to a privately owned wiki plagiarism. I am not your student claiming it was my work. I am not claiming any sort of authorship at all. Wikipedia is not an academic project. It is not my writing and I am not a plagiarist. You cannot simply expand the interpretation of plagiarism through your own inability to see outside the box. Not everyone is writing here. Historically alot of not-writing has been a part of the contributions here. And you can't suddenly declare everything associated with Wikipedia as writing and subject to the rules of writing merely because it what you best relate to.--BirgitteSB 01:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Above thread has been unindented - bit below is in reply to OP at start of section.
I think the discussion around this topic represents a conflict of values between what Wikipedia has been and what it can be. In order to gain some legitimacy, Wikipedians took public domain text and applied it to articles as filler material. But I am among the growing number of editors who see this project as being able to be much more than it is. Our standards continue to rise with time, and this is one of the issues that should be improved. Any material that was PD text should be tagged and an effort should be made to transform these passages and articles into original writing. Wikipedia should not borrow full passages or articles from other encyclopedias. It can not only rival others in quality, it should be able to surpass them. --Moni3 (talk) 12:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well Done
Well done essay, very revalent too as it is a problem we have, given the open nature of Wikipedia. Marlith (Talk) 22:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Podcast?
Perhaps we should have a podcast on this issue! I never thought plagiarism was so fascinating and hotly-debated. I love it. Awadewit (talk) 23:49, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Let's get serious about writing an encyclopedia
This dispatch misses the point entirely. Most plagiarised material is not encyclopedic, simply because the plagiariser has not made the effort to incorporate it into the existing encyclopedic corpus. If s/he had made that effort it wouldn't be plagiarism, evidently. Yet the dispatch seems to believe that it is the "plagiarism" which is the problem, not the generation of an encyclopedia; and that if things are properly sourced, the problem will go away! The authors have, at the very least, missed an opportunity; at worst, they have started to create yet another barrier against the creation and improvement of articles by those who are not already in the system.
Nobody would buy a CD which only contained featured articles: if they would, such a CD would have been published. This encyclopedia has grown to what it is, one of the Top-Ten websites, by the efforts of many people and through a lot of what would be called "plagiarism" if it were put in a Freshman essay without citation, and through many articles which are not yet perfect. While it is valid to wish to improve the citations on Wikipedia, and the paraphrasing, this is not the end in itself. To place the quality control of Wikipedia entirely in the hands of a small number of people, whether they be academics or winos or both or neither, is pernicious. Physchim62 (talk) 01:36, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Am I a plagiarist?
I got called out at Talk:Hulk (comics) for some text I wrote. Here's what was on the talk page.
While I see a lot of similarities between my text and the "Problems in paraphrasing" section, the "Good adaptation practice" has similarities as well. It seems like the good version starts by naming the source, which I don't think has an effect different from an inline citation, and then does stuff that is (maybe) borderline OR, while not being that different. It changes " instantaneous, unblinking, cheap, and, maybe most importantly, easy" to "standard workplace technology", for example. I think there's some push/pull between OR and paraphrasing, I guess. A lot of times we're just paraphrasing a sentence or two. It's a lot easier to move away from plagiarism when summarising a large bunch of text, obviously. The good example kinda changes "X does Y" to "Y was done by X", which is supposed to not matter. In a scholarly situation, your own opinion is valid, but then not when paraphrasing, so maybe more OR is acceptable? I don't know. Anyways, I'd like to hear the opinions of the authors of this article on how I can improve. Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The edit history as attribution
Fascinating essay, thanks folks. It has got me thinking about how we attribute authorship on WP using the edit history. If I create an article, there's nothing on the article to credit me. You can find out from the edit history. When someone rewrites the article, but keeps a few of my sentences, they don't put them in quotes. But the diffs on the history can show what has been kept and what was discarded. How is the situation different from Birgitte's upload of Glendon W. Smalley's text compared to say if Smalley had a WP account and wrote that directly into WP? I've read somewhere the edit history is vital for GFDL. Perhaps this modern technology supersedes quotation marks in some way. Could it be that standard references on plagiarism aren't yet adapted to the wiki format of publication and continual change by a mix of authors. Colin°Talk 17:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fact ownership
"In terms of plagiarism, if not copyright, the author also "owns" the facts or his or her interpretation of them, unless these are, as mentioned above, common knowledge." Is a bit misleading. The seminal case on facts (which is cited earlier) clearly states: "The first is that facts are not copyrightable". Their selection and arrangement or a specific expression of them yes, but not the facts. Aboutmovies (talk) 21:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Really, if it doesn't apply to copyright, why even mention copyright? You already qualified the sentence that you are discussing plagiarism. This is the reason why it is detrimental to attack non-infringing "plagiarism"! A simple fact cannot be copyrighted. I cannot copyright the fact that water boils at 212 °F (at sea level, at least). Who taught me that fact? I certainly didn't know it on the day I was born! Who am I "plagiarising" by sharing that fact with you today?
The authors of this dispatch have tried to invent a new kind of "ownership" of knowledge, which goes contrary to everything that Wikipedia stands for. It will no longer be sufficient to shae knowlegde, your article will also have to pass a new "Plagiarism Police" which will surely have to make you recall the names of the authors of every book you've ever read and every teacher you ever had since kindergarten if they were to do their job properly. Physchim62 (talk) 02:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On plagiarism of public domain sources
This is a good article, but I also felt like it did not give enough emphasis to how we permit appropriation of text from free and public domain sources like EB1911. Attribution is always important, but if the text of a source is incorporated into the article and adapted, quotation marks are not required. I write a blog where I release all posted content into the public domain, and to be honest I want Wikipedia to steal my text. It's also not clear to me how one can "misrepresent a source's ideas as one's own" if the article is not even supposed to have any ideas of its own (these would be original research). On the other hand it is important for us to increase awareness of close paraphrasing of non-free sources, which have been slipping under the radar and poisoning huge collections of articles. Dcoetzee 22:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Even if not a ghost of their verbiage remains, they still influenced the article construction." As above, if this were taken to its conclusion, we should all be citing our kindergarten teachers as essential parts of the process that led to the creation of Wikipedia articles. Yet again, I shall say that the dispatch is a bad essay because it has a false axiom. Please improve wikipedia articles (instead of making pointless metadiscussion) and please cite your sources. There we go, simple. Physchim62 (talk) 02:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Public domain text, attribution, and best practices
It is time for Wikipedia to deprecate the inclusion of public domain text, unless quoted and specifically attributed. Here are some concerns:
The most important reason however is simple standards. Wikipedia need not, and should not, confuse the issues of authorship and attribution by the wholesale copying of public domain text without quotes and specific attribution. That is fairer to the original authors and clearer to the readers. There are other places where out-of-copyright sources can be reproduced.
Undoubtedly, the use of public domain text on Wikipedia has long been encouraged. Nothing I write here should be interpreted as a criticism of those who have followed this common practice (much less criticism of anyone posting above). But it is time to move beyond that, and to make sure that our collaborative efforts are in fact our efforts, and where public domain text is used, it should be specifically marked and cited to its source. Kablammo (talk) 15:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps an example will help?
Let me give an example of why copying and pasting without quotation marks can be a problem. Below, is a list of the first few Ten Commandments from Exodus 20 (King James translation, a multi-authored, PD text):
Original text (see here, for example):
Copy and paste which has been mercilessly edited:
We can no longer tell what is from the PD translation and what is not. That is the problem that we are wrestling with here. How can we easily communicate to readers what has been altered and what has not? It is not an irrelevant problem, as the ideas and language of the writers of these PD texts deserve to be treated with same intellectual respect as those of writers' whose works are still under copyright. Awadewit (talk) 19:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a specific paper in mind now, but suppose someone reproduces verbatim on Wikipedia a soil science paper from the USDA and uses the template to describe it as public domain. Thereafter it is edited, and now the USDA's work, and perhaps even the scientist's name, are associated with bowdlerized or degraded text. It would be little comfort to the authors to state that the original and correct version is buried in the edit history. Kablammo (talk) 20:15, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This whole debate is silly. Awadewit and the other authors of this dispatch have forgotten that Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia and not a MMPORPG. They have yet to produce one single realistic example of why a new guideline is needed. Their entire argument is one of the more pernicious examples of instruction creep I've seen since – I don't know, maybe the last time I visited WT:MOS ;) It is pernicious because any time wasted on chasing up non-existent "plagiarism" is time that won't be spent improving our encyclopedic content. Physchim62 (talk) 21:29, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Externally-produced Free Content text should continue to be used to help reach our goal
I agree with Physchim62 and BirgitteSB that this essay takes a rather extreme view on plagiarism in reference to the reuse of free content (which, of course, includes PD text). The proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Plagiarism appears to present a pretty good compromise that allows the use of free content so long as it is properly attributed using inline cites and/or attribution templates (which is a lot more attribution than we grant other Wikipedians). Further, Wikipedia is part of the larger Free Culture movement, which encourages reuse and (often) modification of free content.
Given that, I fail to see how reusing free content that explicitly gives permission to modify and redistribute at will is at all wrong (PD text simply revokes all such rights or those rights have expired). As Physchim62 stated, Wikipedia is not an academic game of one-upmanship on who can author the most or best content. It is a work of many different people who provide free content with the goal of presenting the sum of human knowledge in an encyclopedic format. I don't see why we should limit the use of good free content just because it happened to be authored somewhere else. That would seem to be a hindrance to our goal. --mav (talk) 00:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(undent) Did anyone bring any chips? I'm a bit hungry. Ling.Nut.Public (talk) 06:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(undent)...and I repeat myself: The answer exists outside of us, not within our WP:CONSENSUS. Somewhere there are resources that answer these questions explicitly. Find them. read them. Follow them. Ling.Nut.Public (talk) 13:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Plagiarism can be fought by other means, and does not need a "moral crusade"
Much of the debate has been about our "moral duty" to fight supposed plagiarism. Frankly, that gets my back up, I don't like being told how to be moral by other people, and I don't think I'm alone that dislike! ;) In a Wikipedia context, I find it particularly disturbing that we should have a moral crusade against, say, plagiarism, and not one against the moral issues which I find more pressing, such as respect of privacy (especially for legal minors) or malicious edits from individuals or organizations with a clear conflict of interest. But still, I shouldn't fall into the trap of forcing my morals down other people's throats, and we are here to discuss a specific dispatch about plagiarism.
I am still less than convinced of the need to do anything at all over and above what we should be doing already, yet the urgency of such action seems to be the axis of the dispatch we are discussing here. We should cite our sources, probably even more so than we do when we write academic articles in our own disciplines (as many contributors to this discussion do professionally): nobody is disagreeing on that. But where Awadewit seems to see the heinous academic crime of plagiarism, I simply see an article which needs to be improved for our users. I agree with Birgitte that it seems to be hyperbole to even call it "plagiarism" at all, given the context of Wikipedia: they are simply articles which could be improved.
The problem is that article improvement is rarely a matter of removing a single type of fault, nor even of applying some centrally unified set of criteria. Just because article improvement is difficult doesn't make it any less important for the future of this encyclopedia. For me, "plagiarism" at Wikipedia is bad for two reasons:
I am interested to see if the authors of the dispatch can find some elements in there to agree with ;) Physchim62 (talk) 14:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some thoughts
1A) When student takes a Wikipedia article and improves it only somewhat and turns it in as an assignment citing Wikipedia as a reference, this is plagiarism. 1B) When editor takes a Wikipedia article and improves it only somewhat and saves those changes on Wikipedia, this is not plagiarism. 2A) When a student takes CC-by-SA article from Citizendium and improves it only somewhat and turns it in as an assignment citing Citizendium as a reference, this is plagiarism. 2B) When editor takes a Citizendium article, after Wikipedia becomes dual-licensed, and first dumps and in later edits merges it into a Wikipedia stub, which only contributes to the merged introduction, attributing the Citizendium author, this is not plagiarism. 3A)When a student takes a PD article from the internet and improves it only somewhat and turns it in as an assignment citing the website as a reference, this is plagiarism. 4B)When editor takes a PD article and first dumps and in later edits merges into a Wikipedia stub. which only contributes to the merged introduction, attributing the PD author, this is not plagiarism. What is the difference you all see between the B statements that some can be disagreed with and not others?--BirgitteSB 19:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Brief nod to Ling.Nut capering about manically. Yes, I'm watching, do your magic trick for Daddy.Franamax (talk) 07:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply](undent) Wow. I thought I was rude. Franamax. I'm stunned. I'm speechless. No. Truly. I don't know how to reply, because.. because your remarks have so little connection with reality... no connection, really, none at all. No connection. None. Whatsoever. Moreover, if I gave a simple repetition of objective facts (see above) it would still seem like tit-for-tat. The real world exists outside Wikipedia, dude. Sincerely. Ling.Nut.Public (talk) 10:15, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A very concrete example
The article Critical Analysis of Evolution at this stage of development was written by a single editor who releases their contributions into the public domain. If a student expanded on the that text and turned it in for a class assignment without complete re-writing and quotation (which is allowed under a public domain release), it would be considered plagiarism. Yet this expansion on Wikipedia (also allowed under a public domain release) is not considered plagiarism. I have stated a solid rationale for why this can be accurate based on claims authorship credit, but people dispute that rationale. How else can the one be described as plagiarism and not the other?--BirgitteSB 18:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Restated facts
"The sky is blue." How can one restate this statement without technically plagiarizing? Could it be that the English language itself is limited in expressing ideas. Someone brought up the point to me that a restatement of facts is not plagiarizing. Words are reused a billion times a day, even me writing this message, people have used everyword I am typing in sentences. In my opinion, plagiarism is stealing a persons idea and taking credit for it, not restating the facts. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[2] [3]
Please advise
There is no specific template message to tag for plagiarism? Does one need to start a separate Wikipedia plagiarism website to have these matters taken seriously? Please see the Wars of Cyrus the Great, where earlier in the day were found large blocks of text taken verbatim from an 1881 online text—situation at first resolved by converting two sections to long quotes, though this makes the section content based on historiography 130 years old—and on reviewing, I found a paragraph taken all but verbatim from a recent 2012 scholarly text. Given the remaining large blocks of text with few or no sources, it is likely that the rest of the article will be similarly unmasked. In short, the article should be pulled as a plagiarised piece. Copyvio tags were used to mark content, but this seems a misuse of these tags. How does one show that Wikipedia is taking this seriously? Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 00:33, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]