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Following Jon Appleton's suggestion, I looked at the website mentioned in the discussion as supplying a "definition" of plagiarism (http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html)
Is there anyone on this list who believes that "failing to put a quotation in quotation marks" (bullet point 3, under "all of the following are considered plagiarism") is prima facia plagiarism or (and I am not a lawyer) is against US copyright law?
The real question here is, "is this plagiarism?"
This is iParadigms scare-mongering and drumming up business, not a thoughtful consideration of plagiarism
Erik Borg
From: Plagiarism [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Jon Appleton [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 02 September 2011 16:50Subject: Re: Is "Proof reading" a legitimate action?
- The full wording on the site (one of many variations) is:
- "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
- to use (another's production) without crediting the source
- to commit literary theft
- to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward."
The problem is that this makes huge assumptions even within its "definition". Several of the formulations within the "definition" are objective ("passing off the ideas of others", "using another's production without credit") while others bring in a significant subjective element ("steal", "theft"). In particular, the final sentence most certainly is not "in other words" - there is absolutely no implication in many of the variant definitions included above that plagiarism must be done knowingly or, most bizarrely of all, that it necessarily requires lying about it afterwards ("I've copied three-quarters of my dissertation from the web but when challenged I admitted it so it's not plagiarism" ???)
It is entirely possible to commit plagiarism through (culpable) ignorance or misunderstanding of the required referencing conventions or through (culpable) negligence in recording sources. This is less culpable than deliberately setting out to cheat but it is still plagiarism in that a reader of the work is deceived as to what the personal contribution of the writer is. On that basis, sub-editing can be plagiarism although possibly proof-reading would not be. Yes families and friends do this - that does not make it acceptable, just less detectable.
While it is a huge step change in the work-load, I'm not clear how an assessor can establish whether all the changes were to elements that were not covered by the learning outcomes (eg grammar and spelling if these are not being assessed) unless the student submits both their original draft as well as the proof-read/ corrected draft.************************************************************************* You are subscribed to the JISC Plagiarism mailing list. To Unsubscribe, change your subscription options, or access list archives, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/PLAGIARISM.html *************************************************************************
All the best ,
Jon Appleton
On 2 September 2011 14:29, Duncan Williamson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear All,
Adding proof reading to the list of plagiarism crimes must lead to a wide variety of other crimes having to be added, surely?
My initial reaction to this debate was to go back to the definition of plagiarism itself. In summary, plagiarism can be defined as
… an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.
http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html
I don’t know if this list has accepted this definition but if it has, or a definition similar to this, then proof reading is not part of the crime is it?
On the other hand, if we define plagiarism to cover, “all my own work” then that’s a different story.
What you might want to consider is to insist that students/authors add a clause that says something like this:
Blah, blah, blah, used the services of a proof reader. The Proof reader should then have added an acknowledgement of their involvement and that they have corrected grammar and spellings etc but not the substance and meaning of the work …
Best wishes
Duncan
From: Wells, Julian [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 01 September 2011 15:57
Subject: Re: Is "Proof reading" a legitimate action?
Speaking as a former professional journalist who has done a lot of sub-editing and proof-reading, I’d say
1) From the point of view of the printing and publishing trades these are quite distinct tasks.
a. Sub-editing is correcting and *improving* a text submitted by a contributor (internal or external to the publication)
b. Proof-reading is ensuring that the edited text has been set by the typesetter in accordance with the text and any typographic instructions, and indicating any further corrections
2) However, there is obviously (?) a fuzzy boundary between correction and improvement (and indeed the reverse; pedants who – wrongly – feel that split infinitives are impermissible are definitely not improving a text when they needlessly remove them)
In the present case one senses that what is really being asked for is considerably over the border on the improvement side, at the very least.
Assuming that there was in fact any correction in the first place one would need to compare original and subsequent versions and come to a judgment.
Dr Julian Wells
Director of Studies
School of Economics
staff web-page: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/staff/cv.php?staffnum=287
personal web-site: http://staffnet.kingston.ac.uk/~ku32530
Principal lecturer in economics
School of Economics
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Kingston University
Penrhyn Road
Kingston-upon-Thames
KT1 2EE
United Kingdom
From: Plagiarism [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Clarke
Subject: Is "Proof reading" a legitimate action?
Sent: 01 September 2011 14:50
As part of our research into "contract cheating" we are increasingly finding requests to outsource "proof reading" of essays and disserations, such as the one shown below:-
"I'm looking for an English native user. The duties are to proofread my piece of work, correct my grammar mistakes and edit to better wording. I hope to look for long term cooperator. You must deliver the assignment with good quality on time. The topic of my works is related to financial products, IT knowledge and few electronic engineering. Please msg then I can send you a sample test. In addition, please inform me how will you charge. "
Do you think that proof-reading is a legitimate practice?
Bob Clarke
School of Computing, Telecommunications and Networks
Birmingham City University
UK
* For more information on "contract cheating" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_cheating
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