On Plagiarism

[thethiefofvictory 339]

Plagiarism. Anyone who writes knows this word. Look at the Newspaper, look at Amateur Writing. The requirements and guidelines oblige a writer to not plagiarise, or he will be banned from writing again.

 

Inspiration. Anyone involved in arts knows this word. Many great writers are inspired from other great, or perhaps not so great, writers. Many take inspiration from the world around us. Does that mean they copied, and took credit for themselves by writing, or drawing, or creating, or whatever?

 

Let us take the example of an aspiring writer, here in Amateur Writing. He - or she, to satisfy those of the audience who are offended by assumption of gender - will be named Writer. Writer spends many hours in the Archives, reading the stories and guides of old. Writer happens upon an article, and likes it so much that Writer now wants to write like that.

 

Maybe Writer liked the intro, or the concept. Or the tone. Maybe the style of writing. Whatever Writer liked is not important to us. What is important that Writer liked it, and so much that Writer takes inspiration. Writer remembers it vividly, and does not need to reread the article to know how to write like that.

 

Writer starts work on an article, and remembers the article he/she read. So well, in fact, that Writer unwittingly, or perhaps even deliberately, incorporates elements of it in the article in progress, but forgets to give credits. Whatever happened, Writer’s intent was not to plagiarise. The article also meets the originality guideline, for those of the audience who would imagine that the article in question was essentially Wasp’s table of statistics. Here comes my first question to the audience: does Writer need to credit the article he or she read, and took inspiration from?

 

At last, after much hard work, Writer posts the article in Amateur Writing.

 

Two days later, Writer logs into Tanki Forum and discovers a Private Message sent by the Helpers. Writer reads it, and learns that his or her article was denied on grounds of plagiarism. In addition, Writer is forbidden from writing again.

 

Here comes my next question: Does Writer deserve this?

 

The Amateur Writing Guidelines, written by our esteemed former Reporter Admin GoldRock, say that “topics posted with content that has been copied by the user with the obvious intent of making it appear as their own work will not be approved!”

 

Here comes my next question: Can you read the minds of others? Can you read Writer’s mind? If not, how do you know that Writer intended to plagiarise? What classifies as obvious?

 

I ask you now. What is the difference between being inspired from a work of art, and plagiarising that work of art? How would one differentiate between these two?

 

I shall now present another example. Writer 2 is another aspiring writer who decides to write an article for Amateur Writing. Writer 2, after much hard work, posts his article. A few hours later, Writer 2 also receives the Private Message from the Helpers, stating that the article has been denied on grounds of plagiarism.

 

Do you know why, my dear audience?

 

Writer 2 inadvertently wrote an intro and outro very similar to one of an article in the Newspaper. Writer 2 did so solely because what he or she wrote, while original to him or her, was easy for anyone to think up. As such, Writer 2’s intro and outro, by sheer coincidence, was nearly the same as that of the aforementioned Newspaper article.

 

I ask you, my audience: did Writer 2 deserve this? Did Writer 2 plagiarise?

 

I now request you to think about this. Such an occurrence is rare, I will admit, but not nonexistent. And I am not here to defend the act of plagiarism, no. I will just ask: Should innocents be punished because the helpers thought they plagiarised? Mistakes are human nature, yes, but it is also human obligation to keep these mistakes to a minimum. Do innocents deserve to be punished for a supposed crime?

 

I would also like to advise the writers here - use caution. Make sure that you cannot be accused of plagiarism before posting. Try not to include phrases or passages that resemble those of another article.

 

Once more, I would like to request you, my audience, to think about this. Maybe some have realized by now, and perhaps many have not, but this does not refer solely to plagiarism. It can apply everywhere in the world. I hope you learnt from this, and I hope you liked - not upvoted, liked - the article.

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

Approved!

 

I can't really think of many edits to suggest as this article is your opinion on a matter and it's not a guide or story (which isn't a problem). I'd just like to clarify that paraphrasing is not much of a problem for the AWS section. It is highly unlikely that you will end up writing something completely, 100% never before thought of. What does become a problem is just directly copy-pasting articles (plagiarism) or taking bits and pieces of other articles (such as copying the requirements to become an event moderator from the forum and getting the other details from the Tanki wiki.

 

Nevertheless, an interesting read.