Plagiarism

The word plagiarism is derived from Latin plagiarius, which means ‘kidnapper’, and plagiare, which means ‘to steal’. Plagiarism, specifically, is a term used to describe a practice that involves knowingly taking and using another person’s work and claiming it, directly or indirectly, as your own. The MLA Handbook defines plagiarism as “the use of another person's ideas or expressions in your writing without giving proper credit to the source”. The American Historical Association’s ‘Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct’ defines plagiarism as the appropriation of “the exact wording of another author without attribution,” and the borrowing of “distinctive and significant research findings or interpretations” without proper citation. It is a wrongful act of taking the product of another person's mind and presenting it as one's own. The practice of plagiarism is a serious violation of the ethics of scholarship. It undermines the credibility of historical inquiry. Plagiarism can also be an offense against the literary rights of the original author and the property rights of the copyright owner.

Historical knowledge is a blend of both primary and secondary sources. Historians always use prior historical knowledge to substantiate his/her argument. Thus, historical research heavily depends on the sources and interpretations produced by others. Thus, a historian should acknowledge his sources, and should never simply borrow and rephrase the findings of other scholars. In this regard, it is necessary to uphold academic integrity and ethics. 

Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism

Intentional plagiarism is a crime. The most obvious form of inappropriate borrowing involves the exact pirating of paragraphs, pages, or entire papers or chapters without quotation or attribution. A large amount of copying involved in such cases makes the occurrence of plagiarism undeniable. This can also include simply reproducing another person’s work without his consent, paraphrasing, copying someone else's writing word for word, or using ideas that aren't your own without proper citation.

Plagiarism is often unintentional. When a historian simply links one paraphrase to the next, even if the sources are cited, a kind of structural misuse takes place. Thus the writer often indirectly claims a shaping intelligence that actually belonged to the sources. In this case, a historian usually pleads that the lapse was unintentional. But, whether intentional or unintentional, plagiarism should be avoided.

Forms of Plagiarism

• Intentional Plagiarism or Direct Plagiarism: It is the word-for-word transcription of a section of someone else’s work, without attribution and without quotation marks. It is a severe form of plagiarism and it is a punishable crime.
• Mosaic Plagiarism or Remix: In this form, phrases and terms are lifted from the source and sprinkled together without attribution. The author does not use exact original sentences or words, but takes the idea or main points of the content and presents that by using their own wording and sentences.
• Self-Plagiarism or Recycle: It occurs when an author duplicates his or her own previous work or mixes parts of previous works.
• Paraphrasing - Find and Replace: In paraphrasing plagiarism, a writer usually copies or takes a central idea or some essential points from someone else’s work. After using some synonyms and restructuring the sentences, they add that content to their work and present it as their content without proper attribution.
• Accidental Plagiarism or Unintentional Plagiarism: Accidental plagiarism occurs when a person neglects to cite their sources, or misquotes their sources, or unintentionally paraphrases a source without attribution. Proper note-taking methods and knowledge of proper citation are necessary to avoid accidental plagiarism.

How to avoid plagiarism

• A basic rule of good note-taking should be adopted to distinguish carefully between the exact quotation and paraphrase.
• Always cite the source borrowed from the others (directly or indirectly), and thereby acknowledge the original author. Cite all sources and present full details of these in the list of references.
• Always use quotation marks to distinguish between the actual words of the writer and your own words. Quotation marks should be used to indicate the exact words of another.

Most cases of plagiarism represent a failure to properly paraphrase, quote, and cite sources. Presently academic institutions regulate several rules to prevent plagiarism in research. Plagiarism checking software is available for free to check the degree of plagiarism in a research paper.