Re: plagiarism

minimus wrote:
If I use the same words in my article, in a slightly different context
and without taking the whole sentence of where this phrase lies,
would this be considered as plagiarism?

<angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:g66vlo$6mr$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The rule of thumb I tell students is even two words in
a unique collocation is plagiarism. Period.

The word "unique" is valuable but this rule of thumb
seems not a practical guide because it excludes context,
and context is often what helps us decide whether a
phrase is a quotation or plagiarism or a coincidence.

The most important context is that which identifies the
purpose of writing. Common purposes are:
A. Academic credit (i.e. a student's meeting the requirements
of teachers in authority);
B. Cash money;
C. Professional credit (i.e. reputation among peers.)

These contexts differ, in that the same non-unique phrase or
sentence is treated differently in each context. Case A is
arbitrated by the teacher in authority; case B is usually
arbitrated by judges in civil law courts; case C is decided
by the consensus of peers.

Case A is clarified by standard rules of citation. The general
assumption is that everything written by a student is his own
thought in his own words, unless "credited" correctly to
another source (Angelglow's rule of thumb.) The concept
of "credit" is important because the student's writing seeks
credit (all or part of a unit in the academic points system
integral to qualifying for promotion or for some certification.)

No practical rule guarantees satisfaction in real contexts, even
limited to those of class A. Real contexts require a huge number
of decisions by individual teachers as to whether a phrase or
sentence genuinely is the student's own, or has been taken
from some other source (and misrepresented as original.)
Real arbitration of such decisions is seldom determined by
the actual words, even if the teacher has before him two
cases of use, the student's and the (putative uncredited)
source. Real decisions are usually made by the teacher's
questioning the student, to find out how well he understands
the concepts and how they function in the context of his
particular essay (and not in the whole corpus of printed
literature.)

Thus Angelglow's rule of thumb is nothing positive that
the student can use: it is instead a formal warning that,
if he presents as original words or ideas that are not
original, he is liable to investigation and (on conviction)
punishment. Case B has produced a large volume of
jurisprudence about coincidence, simultaneous invention,
and covert theft, that may be consulted if helpful, but the
teacher is not obliged to consult it: and some interesting
instances of Case C also occur, viz. outcomes that may
later be reconsidered as unfactual or unfair.

"Fairness" remains central, as important in any decision
about plagiarism, even if no one can specify beforehand
how fairness does or ought to manifest itself.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)


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