What is Plagiarism?
The plagiarism meaning comes from the Latin word ‘plagiarius,’ which means to kidnap. As the plagiarism definition suggests, when someone uses the work of another artist without properly citing the source or giving credit, then that will be an instance of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a punishable offense, and it is a form of intellectual theft.
It is effortless to plagiarise any content or article from the website, but at the same time, it has grave consequences. Plagiarism can affect someone’s career adversely. The student often uses parts of an article in his project without crediting the source, therefore, committing plagiarism. The teachers must warn the students about plagiarism as well as the plagiarism meaning to ensure that this offense does not occur.
If the student is changing the word order or summarising the work or using exact lines from a text without using quotation marks or citing the source, that is not crediting the source correctly, then it will be considered plagiarism.
However, reusing a previous work or parts of it without the professor also comes under plagiarism. It is called self-plagiarism, and if the teacher finds an instance of self-plagiarism, the student may end up with a poor grade.
Plagiarism is applicable for writing or website articles, but it is also applicable in stealing intellectual property like music, images, videos, and even choreography of a dance.
Plagiarism can fail a piece of work trying to serve its primary purpose. While artwork or writing is considered successful if it reaches the audience, plagiarism takes away the work’s credibility, and the artist or writer’s message fails to reach the audience. Therefore, the students or artists must not plagiarise, neither deliberately nor accidentally.
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What Does Plagiarism Mean?
As per the plagiarism definition, plagiarism means stealing intellectual property or intellectual fraud. When you use parts of writing or artwork without crediting the original writer or artist, then plagiarized work is considered. The meaning of and how we define plagiarism has changed gradually with time.
Nowadays, it is effortless to find plagiarized content, and many students tend to change the parts of the work or substitute words with synonyms. This is also a form of plagiarism. Therefore, a student or writer must be careful about plagiarising any article. It is better to work on fresh ideas, and if you are willing to substantiate your opinion, you must use proper quotation marks and citations.
Types of Plagiarism
Considering the pattern, plagiarism can be of different types. They are:
- Direct Plagiarism
- Mosaic Plagiarism
- Accidental Plagiarism
- Self-Plagiarism
- Paraphrasing Plagiarism
Self-plagiarism and mosaic plagiarism are the two most common forms of plagiarism.
What is Self-Plagiarism?
If someone reuses his own work again without the permission of the professor, it will be considered self-plagiarism. In the case of publishing, the writer must keep in mind that the citation must include all the works he is utilizing as a reference, even if the work is a previous work of the same writer. Otherwise, they may end up plagiarising themselves. By making sure you understand the plagiarism definition and work towards adding citations, you can ensure no work is copied and all work produced is 100% authentic.
Consequences of Self-Plagiarism
Academic institutions take self-plagiarism seriously, and that can affect the grade of the student. But what does plagiarism mean for you in terms of the impact it could have on your grade? First, this will be an instance of academic misconduct, and therefore the student may get a bad degree or even probation as a result. Second, considering the institution’s stand on plagiarism, the student can get a failing grade in that semester, affecting the student’s academic career adversely.
If self-plagiarism is being done by a writer, then the publishing house can take action against him, considering their policies. Besides this, the writer may lose his set of readers because of the credibility issue.
Therefore, even if you are using parts of your previous work in your assignment or writing, you must remember that citation is essential.
How Do You Define Plagiarism When Using Images, Videos, And Music?
For images, videos, and music, if you are using it in your work without mentioning the source or taking permission from the artist, it will be considered plagiarism. Here are some instances that can be regarded as plagiarism while using images, videos and music:
- If you copy any image and use it for your work without crediting the source, then that will be plagiarism.
- If the music produced by someone is partially or exactly similar to already existing music.
- Using parts of videos in your own video without permission or credit.
- For performing copyrighted music without mentioning the source.
- Recreating any painting or image with the same set-up or precisely the same idea, then it will be considered plagiarism.
- Shooting a video clip with copyrighted music playing in the background will be another instance of plagiarism.
- Illegal distribution of any content that has copyright will be punishable as it will be considered as plagiarism.
Plagiarism Statistics
With technological advances, the publication scenario has changed as well. Nowadays, the publication is much more comfortable, causing the plagiarism rate to go up. In addition, many students are interested in copy-pasting items than writing them on their own. Therefore, teaching the plagiarism meaning and scenarios in which plagiarism can occur will begin to limit these instances.
Recent seven-year research by Donald McCabe, who conducted the survey on 70,000 high schools, found that 58% of them have admitted that they practice plagiarism. Another study by CollegeHumor showed that among 30,000 students, 16.5% have considered cheating as a way to finish their assignment.
Overall, statistics say that at least 68% of the students have plagiarised. However, the students are gradually becoming more aware of plagiarism and its consequences. The study revealed that 85% of students thought plagiarism will help them to earn a better score, which is definitely alarming.
Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, Copyleaks did a study comparing the similarity scores prior to the pandemic and during. What they found was that there was a major increase in overall plagiarism in student assignments from around the world. They discovered that there was more paraphrasing and text replacement compared to assignments submitted through the plagiarism checker in 2019. This was unanimous for countries all over the world including the United States, India, Brazil, and more.
Following the the first study, Copyleaks conducted another analysis of more than 1000 student assignments that were submitted to the plagiarism checker. Due to the fact that nearly 100% of courses were now online, there was a major increase in cheating and overall plagiarism. Copyleaks identified that the average similarity score of 35.1% went up to 49.6% when looking at two different periods in pre and post-Covid. This study helped everyone realize that it’s crucial to teach students about the importance of correctly quoting and referencing their material and how to avoid accidental plagiarism.
How can I Check for Plagiarism?
Checking plagiarism is very easy. There are plenty of paid and free online plagiarism tools that can help you to check if there is an instance of plagiarism in your work or not. But, Copyleaks does this work in the best way. You need to upload your work to the plagiarism detector. The tool will find out the percentage of plagiarism, and it will also identify the plagiarized content for you.
With its sophisticated technology, you can detect plagiarism in real-time and at a superfast speed. Try yourself! Start Scanning Now!
What Do You Want To Scan?
With Copyleaks now, you can scan anything and everything. Starting from raw texts to the website URLs, you name anything, and we will allow you to scan it on our platform. Furthermore, we ensure that all your documents are unique and original—free from all kinds of plagiarism.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Plagiarism is nothing but theft of intellectual property. If someone is copying deliberately without mentioning the source, then that will be plagiarism. It is an offense and can ruin someone’s career. The stealing can also make the artist feel violated as he treasures his work more than anything.
Online content can be used, but there is one condition. The writer must mention the URL of the article and the website he is consulting. Otherwise, using parts from online content without any credit will be considered plagiarism.
Paraphrasing is the process of rewriting content in your own words. This differs from plagiarism, meaning using another writer’s words, ideas, or content as your own.
Whether this is within an academic environment or within a business, the punishment can differ. With many universities and schools having zero-tolerance policies around this, you could lose your degree or even be put on probation. Several legal punishments can come along with plagiarism should you be found guilty.
When referencing someone else’s work within a paper or content you are creating, it is crucial to make sure that you are referencing and placing the information within the citation. This means that you will be able to reference and use this information within your business.
