--- Gilbert Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The technical and legal definition of 'Plagiarism' > is complex, including motive and financial gain. > Sometimes plagiarism's definition sounds like the > judge's definition of Pornography, "One cannot > define it. But one knows it when one sees it.":=)) > And along the same simile those who express the > greatest moral outrage on the subject may .... just > may .... just may ... be engaging in it, as we have > seen in recent years among more than one moralist. >
What sort of nonsense is this? Is Gilbert now confusing plagiarism with pornography? He avoids giving us his definition of plagiarism, again. Instead, he gives us a definition of pornography, and accuses others of engaging in it. The truth is the definition of plagiarism is very simple. It does NOT include motive and financial gain. Here is the definition provided by Indiana University: http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/definition.html BEGIN QUOTE Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone elses work, including the work of other students, as ones own. Any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged, unless the information is common knowledge. What is considered common knowledge may differ from course to course. a. A student must not adopt or reproduce ideas, opinions, theories, formulas, graphics, or pictures of another person without acknowledgment. b. A student must give credit to the originality of others and acknowledge an indebtedness whenever: 1. Directly quoting another persons actual words, whether oral or written; 2. Using another persons ideas, opinions, or theories; 3. Paraphrasing the words, ideas, opinions, or theories of others, whether oral or written; 4. Borrowing facts, statistics, or illustrative material; or 5. Offering materials assembled or collected by others in the form of projects or collections without acknowledgment. END QUOTE Cheers, Santosh
