Cheating and Plagiarism - Avoiding Plagiarism :: Journalistic Essays

Avoiding PlagiarismFor a number of years now, I have been concerned about the growing amount of plagiarisation on the Internet. As self-publishing on the web becomes increasingly common, the incidences of theft of intellectual property, whether intentional or unintentional have grown astronomically. As a writer , I find this situation intolerable. Intellectual theft is still theft. It harms everyone involved, the original authors, the audience, and the plagiarizer. As members of a spiritual community, we believe that all our actions will be returned up us three fold, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Certainly intellectual theft, intentional or unintentional has its own return.After so many attempts at trying to inform plenty of problems on their websites regarding the improper citation , I decided that perhaps the best approach is to document what constitutes plagiarism and to provide to people who are sincere in presenting information in an intellectually and spirit ually honest manner, with some guidelines for proper citation of sources. First of all plagiarism is derived from the Latin word, plagi rius, meaning to kidnap (American inheritance Dictionary). This implies that plagiarism is in fact the kidnapping of ideas an interesting concept since kidnapping implies that the idea could be seized and held for some kind of intellectual ransom. The dictionary is more distinct about its meaning1. To use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as ones own. 2. To appropriate for use as ones own passages or ideas from (another). (American Heritage Dictionary) Plagiarizing is to perish the impression that the words written or the ideas presented are in fact your own. The MLA Style Manual, the definitive guide for scholarly publishing used as a bible in colleges and graduate schools defines plagiarism as any not acknowledging anothers ideas and wording, either through direct buy undocumented quotes or through paraphrasing (151). They fur ther reflect Plagiarism is a moral and ethical offense rather than a legal one. Most instances of plagiarism fall impertinent the scope of copyright infringement, a legal offense.