Everyone initiated in performing academic works of any sort will be seduced by the abundance of resources pertaining to his or her potential topics. Consequently, plagiarism or copyright infringments will take place and excuses or myths about the possibility of doing so will be fabricated. Personally, I was several times tempted to copy verbatim what I read from a book trying to make myself believe that that is the very idea I have in mind though unconsciously. I am sure that many people are overtaken by such myths: to come across an idea and think that you have it before in the recesses of your brain. Indeed, that is not true. What destinguishes authors from lay men is their ability to crystalize some concepts and notions that are germane to human common senses, yet difficult to realize. On such basis, coming across familiar topics does not mean by any means that you could come out with them yourself. Hence, requesting permission is a must in these cases. One should not let oneself fall in this trap.
Another myth of copyright infringment that I was not in the know of is what is called paraphrasing authors' ideas and making them look as if they are humbly personal ones. Usually, we most of the time have a tendency to plagiarize by changing the words and structures of some quotes on the assumption that our sepervisor will not remark that since the language sounds like ours. This may hold true if what we are writing will not be published for the public. We can fool one sepervisor but we can not fool the public whose intelligence can not be anticipated whatever we tried. Therefore, the safer way is to avoid plagiarism by signalling the start and end of the quote following the appropriate conventions set for this purpose. I think by respecting copyright and taking permission to reproduce written materials we will show to the readers that we are current in the the published literatures and hence gain their trust.
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3 comments:
Your blog/post really made me think - When you use someone elses work it's important out of respect for that work to acknowledge it was their ideas. Thanks so muck k
I would agree with you that it is better to take the safe road of including references to others if your material sounds like their authorship. But I am afraid that will also limit our creativity in expressing our minds since fear is always in our thoughts. It is important to know all the laws so we can safeguard ourselves from needless lawsuits.
I agree it is easy to fall into the accidental act of plagerism we must be very careful in how we write papers to site correctly and make sure that we just do not rearrange the words in belief that this will not plagerise. I believe we would want our work recognised so what is good for me is good for you.
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