Tuesday 23 September 2008

Plagiarism Redefined?


According to Wikipedia, plagiarism is "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."

But I have been thinking of another situation. Let's say someone copies the wordings of an author in his/her work, but not the content, and argues that this does not constitute plagiarism.

Is there any ground for such an argument? Any thoughts?

Cartoon credit.

5 comments:

Alex Tang said...

me wonders how can "someone copies the wordings of an author in his/her work, but not the content"

isn't it alwsy context, context, context?

愛丁堡.四十不惑 said...

As my English is not good, I always "stealing/learning" from others phrases and wordings and vocabulary.

Is that plagiarism?

Kar Yong said...

Hi Alex,

I have wondered about this - how can one copy the wordings verbatim and not the contents.

Kar Yong said...

Hi Sam,

I can understand your situation. To learn from others who write better than us is not wrong - I do that too! But I guess when one copies several sentences verbatim, then that makes it plagiarism.

pearlie said...

copies the wordings of an author in his/her work, but not the content

Still trying to work this sentence out - how can one copies the wordings of an author in his/her work but not the content? Looks like I just did by adding "how can" but then I still need to refer to the person who brought up that idea, don't I? e.g. Kar Yong was asking if ... how can it be?

I am both asking and answering!!! I am as confused as ever!!! Help!!! hahaha ...