Plagiarism

All About Plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when someone uses a someone else's ideas in his or her own work without properly acknowledging the source of those ideas. We must give clear credit to the work of others. Plagiarism is a crime: it is the theft of intellectual property.

Here are some examples of plagiarism:

During a final exam, Mary looks over John's shoulder and copies his answers.
Todd has difficulty writing the introduction to his history paper and gets his roommate to write it for him.
Rachel uses a statistic she found on the internet, but doesn't cite the web page's address.
Jamal looks at an encyclopedia for "background information" and uses several facts and statistics in his paper about Kuwait.
Sally cites a source on her Works Cited page, but she doesn't use parenthetical citations in the text of her paper. Thus it's impossible to tell which passage(s) is from the source.
Herman downloads a paper from the internet and submits it as his own.

The basic point to remember here is IF YOU USE A SOURCE, CITE THAT SOURCE! _______________________________________________

In addition to the obvious warnings against cheating and stealing work, plagiarism can also occur due to poor quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Below is a passage and some examples of various people attempting to incorporate the information in their own papers.

The Harrison Narcotics Act, passed in 1914, made it illegal to sell or use opium, morphine, or cocaine in the United States. However, the Act did not mention heroin. Heroin had been synthesized in 1870 by adding two acetyl groups to the morphine molecule, wihch greatly increased its ability to penetrate the blood-brain barrier. In 1898, heroin was marketed by the Bayer Drug Company; it was freely available without prescription, and was widely advertised as a super aspirin. Tests showed that heroin was a more potent analgesic than morphine and that it was less likely to induce nausea and vomiting. Moreover, the Bayer Company, on the basis of flimsy evidence, claimed that heroin was not addictive; this is why it was not covered by the Harrison Narcotics Act. The consequence of this omission was that opiate addicts in the United States, forbidden by law to use opium or morphine, turned to the readily available and much more potent heroin, and the flames of addiciton were further fanned.

SOURCE: Pinel, John P. Biopsychology. Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 1990. 479.

TEST YOURSELF: Which attempts to use this source are good and which ones plagiarize?

According to John Pinel, one cause of opiate addiction after the Harrison Narcotics Act (1914) was that heroine remained legal and accessible.
Because morphine, cocaine, and opium were outlawed by the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act, "opiate addicts...turned to the readily available and much more potent heroin" (Pinel 479).
Pinel blames the Bayer Company for the high rates of heroin addiction in the United States.
Some commerically-vested companies denied that heroin was habit-forming. For example, Pinel cites the Bayer Company, which concluded that heroin was safe "on the basis of flimsy evidence" (479).
Pinel's main point is that while the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 outlawed the opiates morphine, cocaine, and opium, it ironically increased addiction to the legal and more problematic heroine.
Since heroin remained legal, the flames of addiction were further fanned.
In the late 1800's, heroin was sold by the Bayer Company, it was obtainable with a doctor's order, and it was marketed as a wonder-drug.

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