Plagiarism
You saw in Chapter 5 that plagiarism is different from copyright infringement; the latter is reproducing the copyrighted work of another without permission. On the other hand, plagiarism is using or copying someone else's work and representing it as one's own. “Work” should be broadly interpreted to include both language and ideas.
Substituting some words for others will not make the work one's own, because plagiarism goes beyond language and encompasses the thoughts, ideas, and even the writing style and sentence structure of the material. Although ideas that have not been put in tangible form are not subject to copyright protection, they can be plagiarized.
What Constitutes Plagiarism
There are a number of areas where plagiarism can occur. To avoid even inadvertently committing plagiarism, be aware that any one of the following circumstances may amount to plagiarism:
Representing someone else's work as your own.
Copying the work of another without providing credit to the author.
The failure of inserting quotation marks when reproducing the work of another.
The failure to cite sources when relying on one or more works that forms the majority of your own work.
Incorrectly citing the source of the material.
There are a number of contexts where plagiarism is most likely to take place. Probably foremost is the academic world, which you would enter when writing scholarly books and articles for journals. You must take exceptional care in this area because scrutiny is rigorous and the standards are high.
