If you are writing a research paper, and your interpretation is similar another person's idea but you don't know it, it is considered plagiarism? What I mean is that if I write an idea but that idea is already taken by another writer (without me knowing it) is it plagiarism?
2007-11-10 16:56:45 · 15 answers · asked by AxNxG 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
The definition of plagiarism is "a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work or the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own."
If you use a similar idea - without previous knowledge of the similarity - but aren't actually copying someone else's work/words, it's not plagiarism in my opinion.
If you find out that you are using someone's words/idea and use it anyway, it might be considered plagiarism.
Any time you literally (and purposely) COPY someone's idea and words, it would be plagiarism. So if you get an idea from someone else and then try to pass it off as your own, it's plagiarism.
Similarity to an idea isn't plagiarism. If it were, there would be a very limited amount of books written. Consider romance novels that run along the lines of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back again. How many times has that idea been used? No doubt the idea has been used thousands of times without any plagiarism. There was a writer who actually copied Nora Roberts' idea and words and was sued because of it (and I believe her writing career was basically dead in the water, if I'm remembering correctly).
Does this help? (Keep in mind, I'm not coming at this from the point of view of a lawyer; just giving my opinion on the matter.)
2007-11-10 17:13:08 · answer #1 · answered by ck1 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's a very slippery question, because some might say although the subject is very narrow there are still a great range of synonyms to create different stream of thought. Although I think it's necessary to varify just to be sure with a plagiarism tool http://bit.ly/1tUALhz
2014-04-28 09:09:32 · answer #2 · answered by Anna 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Not necessarily. Plagiarism is usually the direct quoting of another person without admitting it is a quote, and without giving credit to the original author. It can also be regarded as plagiarism if you only change a few words, while retaining the bulk of the original.
2007-11-11 01:08:02 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
No! As long as you're not quoting something word for word and taking credit for it, it's not plagiarism.
Even if you're inspired by something it's not plagiarism. There are no new ideas in this world. Everything's been done. Haha.
2007-11-11 01:07:55 · answer #4 · answered by Katey 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is when your doing a report or some other paper and you go on to the computer and copy and paste information from online and don't give the people credit that made it
2007-11-11 01:07:24 · answer #5 · answered by Namine 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
unless you are quoting nearly word for word - it's not
but if you're trying to sneak one over on your professor
you will be dead meat
was in junior college - and the student beside me was
flagged (F) in the middle of her presentation
BECAUSE - her previous paper on an easy subject
had 1/3 the verbiage and professional level that
her presentastion before the class had
e.g. The kid threw the rock through a window.
The young neighborhood child released the projectile
in an arcing track that coincided with the plate glass of the
living room window, nearly missing the heretofore mentioned
child with the shattering pieces.
FLAG
2007-11-11 01:04:44 · answer #6 · answered by tom4bucs 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It's not. But part of writing a research paper is to first research if someone already had the same idea.
2007-11-11 01:05:49 · answer #7 · answered by alphapower 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No, the concept of plagiarism is that you copied someone else's work, and presented it as your own. If you came up with it on your own, then no, you did not plagiarize.
2007-11-11 01:05:07 · answer #8 · answered by Sonny K 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No. If you had never heard of their idea then you never had anything to plagerize. If someone is marking your work and they have heard of the other persons idea they might think that you were plagerizing and you will just have to explain to them the truth and hope that they will believe you (this won't work if it's already a popular theory or idea like evolution or the big bang).
2007-11-11 01:08:10 · answer #9 · answered by . 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes..it is considered as plagiarism.
2007-11-11 01:05:38 · answer #10 · answered by mia 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋