Plagiarism

Inspiration is an important instinct of human being. This instinct has leaded the human generations to prosper and develop towards better future but picture is totally different on the other side of coin. Due the lack of hard work and struggle this instinct has somewhere given birth to the crimes like kidnappings, robbery and cheating. Through such crimes one can satisfy its need to get control over its inspirations. This usually happens in the materialistic world but the world of knowledge is not safe from it. Therefore nineteenth century, being crowned as century of knowledge, is facing a new crime popularly known as plagiarism.

The word plagiarized means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own: use (a created production) without crediting the source VI: to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

(FROM: Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary 9th ed, (Springfield, Ma: Merriam 1981, p. 870).

Therefore the word plagiarism, is originated from a Latin word which means kidnapping of certain ideas. It is stealing of ideas of other people. Words and ideas are commodity of a particular mind, generating particular thoughts and producing a particular vision. Through plagiarism an effort is made to robe some one else property. Plagiarism can be done intentionally and unintentionally. Sometimes a student or a writer cite some journal, book or website and copies the content without expressing it in his own words. He neither credits the reference nor does he use any quotation marks as safety to avoid plagiarism. Sometimes a student tries to reproduce the content in his own words without knowing that he is stealing the idea or the expression already published. In cases of reproducing the expression sometimes the meanings of a phrase is disturbed. When a student is mixed among many ideas he commits such kind of unintentional crime. Let’s clarify our vision of plagiarism by following example.

Recognize Acceptable from Unacceptable

Here’s the ORIGINAL text, from page 1 of Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890s by Joyce Williams et al.:

The rise of industry, the growth of cities, and the expansion of the population were the three great developments of late nineteenth century American history. As new, larger, steam-powered factories became a feature of the American landscape in the East, they transformed farm hands into industrial laborers, and provided jobs for a rising tide of immigrants. With industry came urbanization the growth of large cities (like Fall River, Massachusetts, where the Bordens lived) which became the centers of production as well as of commerce and trade.