What is Plagiarism?

Definition, Types, How to Avoid, Laws

Plagiarism is derived from the Latin word “Plagiarius' ' meaning “kidnapper”. Plagiarism means
stealing or copying another’s work and representing it as your own work. Plagiarism is
presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by
incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished
material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition.
Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional. Under the regulations for
examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offense.

Plagiarism is most commonly practiced in academics and research. On the internet, we have all
kinds of literary articles, educational content, research papers, etc available for free. This
facilitates everyone and assists them in gaining knowledge and becoming literate. As a result,
some people use these articles, research papers, and educational content in an adverse manner.
Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional. We should have the knowledge of what can be
called plagiarized content and what not. Following are the key points to understand what can be
called as plagiarism:

● If we use another person’s work under our name.

● If we copy other’s ideas and words and don’t give them the credit.
● If we download copyrighted images or music and present them as our own.
● If we copy maximum words and modify them so that we can cleverly use them under
our own name.
● If we use someone else’s copyrighted music or video for our own music cover or
video.
● If we recreate an image, video, music, article, etc in such a manner that it is quite
similar to the original one.

Types of Plagiarism

There are several types of plagiarism. In this article, we will get to know the common ones:

● Complete Plagiarism: Complete Plagiarism is the most extreme form of plagiarism.

In this plagiarism, a person completely copies someone else’s work such as a research
paper, article, image, etc, and represents it as their own work. This form of plagiarism
is similar to identity theft or stealing.
● Verbatim: Verbatim is also known as direct plagiarism. When we read a book we
must have observed that if any statement that a famous person has made is always
represented in double quotations and is highlighted so that we get to know that it is
said by this particular person. Similarly consider a person writing an article and
mentioning someone’s else work or words that too exactly the same. But this person
 doesn’t represent it in quotation marks. Then that person is said to be exhibiting direct
plagiarism. Hence copying another person’s work word to word and not representing
it in quotation marks is known as Verbatim or direct plagiarism.
● Self Plagiarism: This kind of plagiarism is the duplication of a person’s own work. It
is also known as auto plagiarism. It occurs when a person copies some words of his
own published work and uses the same for another work. This form of plagiarism is
commonly observed in research journals. Researchers may make re-use of their
research work for another research work, however, the percentage of re-usage must be
according to those set by the publishing journals if they allow them to do so.
● Source-Based Plagiarism: This form of plagiarism is most commonly observed in
research work. In the research paper one needs to provide references that have
contributed to their work, If a person provides wrong references that do not exist, or
that are not relating to the work then it is known as source-based plagiarism. The
falsification of data or its fabrication is also source-based plagiarism. Falsification
and fabrication of data are manipulating or representing false or non-existing data.
● Accidental Plagiarism: This kind of plagiarism mostly occurs due to a lack of
knowledge. If we don’t know how to paraphrase, cite and quote a research work we
leave the work as it is and it results in accidental plagiarism.

Why is plagiarism unethical?

● Plagiarism is unethical because we are representing someone’s other work as our own
without giving them the right to. In the real world if someone else takes our things
without our permission then we call that person a “thief” and doing so is considered
as a punishable offense. Similarly if in the virtual world someone copies someone
else’s work it is unethical and is a punishable offense.
● Plagiarism affects the integrity of academics. Researchers are given the degree of
Ph.D. on basis of their research works, students are given grades according to their
homework. If we will be practicing plagiarism we will not be gaining any knowledge.
 We may even succeed in getting our Ph.D. degree or good grades but that will put our
career at risk and is a threat to our future. We will be a risk for society, organizations
where we may work as we do not have the complete knowledge of the corresponding
work.
● If we use the plagiarized content for our personal benefits such as monetary gains,
fame, etc then it is unethical because we are being benefitted for what we actually
have not done. We are being rewarded without actually performing well or giving our
100 percent to get that reward. It is immoral to do so.

How to avoid plagiarism?

There are certain steps we can follow in order to avoid plagiarism.

● Always give credit to the person whose work you are including in your own work.
Make use of double quotations to prevent verbatim.
● Build your own ideas and thoughts and use them in your work. Do not copy another
person’s ideas or work. Develop yourself and work on yourself so that you can
enhance your thought process. Increase the domain of your knowledge.
● Make use of paraphrasing. Paraphrasing means the representation of an idea or
thought in our own words in such a manner that the original essence of that idea
remains the same. But we should also do paraphrasing in such a manner that it does
not convert to plagiarism.
● Use online plagiarism checker tools. There are many sites that offer plagiarism
checker tools. These sites check your work against thousands of other works available
on the internet and give you a percentage of plagiarized or unique content. They can
even tell from which site the content is copied. We should always use plagiarism
checker tools in order to prevent plagiarism. Some of the plagiarism checking tools
are – Grammarly, smallseotools, turnitin, quetext, etc.
● Always provide correct references in your research paper or article.
 ● Learn how to cite your articles, provide references, use double quotations, etc. You
should know how to write a scholarly article or book or research paper before you
begin writing.
● If you are using someone else’s videos, images, or audios in your own video, etc
always ask them first, and even after that provide them the credit for the same.
● Keep your morals high. Be educated about plagiarism and be an ethical person. As in
real life, you don’t do bad things as you know the differentiation between what is
good and bad similarly teach your inner conscience that plagiarism is unethical and
you should not make use of plagiarized content.

Laws against plagiarism

There are many laws against plagiarism. Some of them are mentioned below-

● In section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act 1957, authors have “the right to claim
authorship of their works among other things. It grants the authors the special right to
be attributed for their work. The statute recognizes the right to attribution analogous
to the rights not to be plagiarized.”
● In section 63 of the ICA 1957, “a convicted infringer is liable to be imprisoned
between six months to three years, and to be fined between fifty thousand and two
lakh rupees”.
● University Grants Commission or UGC has provided a certain set of guidelines that
need to be followed by universities in order to prevent plagiarism in academic
activities.

7 types of plagiarism

In this section, we’ll cover the 7 most common types of plagiarism:

1. MOSAIC OR PATCHWORK PLAGIARISM

With this type of plagiarism, the work of someone else is simply paraphrased without proper
citation. It’s often difficult to detect because the plagiarized material is interwoven with many
different sources, including the writer’s own ideas and perspective.

This type of paraphrasing can be done from one or several sources. The writer may try to change
up the sentence structure or use synonyms to make it seem original. However, taking the idea of
another piece is still plagiarism, even if the words are switched up a bit and intermingled with
original thought.

2. PARAPHRASING PLAGIARISM

Paraphrasing, or incremental plagiarism, is the most common type of plagiarism. It’s similar to
the mosaic plagiarism style mentioned above. However, the difference is that the copied work
isn’t mixed in with new concepts and research. When you paraphrase the original idea in your
own words, the borrowed material stays the same throughout the new piece.

3. COMPLETE PLAGIARISM

Complete plagiarism is more common in academic writing than in content marketing or other
types of online writing. This type of plagiarism occurs when someone tries to submit an entire
research paper as their own without proper attribution.

For example, this involves copying and pasting the original work in its exact words. The only
thing that is changed is the author’s name.
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4. SELF-PLAGIARISM

Also known as auto-plagiarism, self-plagiarism happens when you copy your own writing,
whether intentional or not. Often the person in a self-plagiarism incident is summarizing or
repurposing their own work instead of writing a whole new piece from scratch on the same topic.

Many people think self-plagiarism is harmless because you aren’t stealing from someone else.
Just yourself. But, this type of plagiarism can be just as damaging as any other.

For example, if you are writing web pages and you are caught plagiarizing, you could end up
getting penalized by Google for duplicate content.

Or, if you are writing for clients, your words may no longer belong to you. This could even result
in potential legal issues if it is a breach of your client contract.

5. ACCIDENTAL PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism doesn’t always happen on purpose. It’s still considered plagiarism when someone
copies another’s writing without citing their source, improperly cites the source or leaves out
quotation marks on accident. Just because the omission or incorrect citation was accidental
doesn’t mean plagiarism hasn’t been committed. This is why it’s important to check any work
and when in doubt, give your source credit.
6. SOURCE-BASED PLAGIARISM

This type of plagiarism refers to instances when misleading sources are involved. For example,
the writer may have two sources of information but only reference one. Another form of
source-based plagiarism would be when an author quotes a non-existent or incorrect source.

The worst type of this kind of plagiarism is when sources are fabricated. Making up information
like study findings or statistics is extremely misleading and can even be harmful in the case of
medical content.

7. DIRECT OR VERBATIM PLAGIARISM

Direct plagiarism, also known as verbatim or copy-paste plagiarism, is an intentional and

unethical form of stealing content. As the name suggests, the writing is stolen word for word and
pasted into the new piece. The author then tries to pass off the content as their own. A word or
two might be changed, but this type of plagiarism is too blatant to be considered paraphrasing.

With multiple plagiarism checking tools available, anyone with an internet connection can
quickly see if a piece was plagiarized.
Many plagiarism software options include the ability to check for structure, synonyms, and even
paraphrasing and common knowledge. If text is copied word for word, it won’t stand a chance of
not being detected as plagiarism. Even pasting the words in a Google search is likely to uncover
the original source when direct plagiarism is involved.

1. Direct Plagiarism

Also known as “word-for-word plagiarism” or “clone plagiarism,” direct plagiarism involves

copying an entire piece of work by someone else and claiming it is your own original work. This
is what many people associate with plagiarism, and it is easy for teachers and professors to
detect.

2. Hired Plagiarism

Hired plagiarism involves paying someone else to write an essay or research paper for you. This
also includes buying essays from internet sites or essay-writing services. It doesn’t have to be the
entire essay or paper; it’s plagiarism to hire someone else to write any part of work you claim as
your own.

3. Borrowed Plagiarism

It’s also plagiarism to borrow essays from friends. You may have older friends who have taken a
course years before from a different instructor. If you use a paper or part of a paper written by a
friend for a past course, this is considered borrowed plagiarism.

4. Self Plagiarism

Similarly, reusing your own work from a past class and passing it off as new work is also a type
of plagiarism. This includes using all or part of a high school essay for a college assignment. It’s
also self plagiarism to use the same essay or paper to fulfill two different assignments for two
different courses.
5. Mosaic Plagiarism

One of the most confusing types of plagiarism is mosaic plagiarism because it encompasses a lot
of different behaviors. Also called “patchwork plagiarism” or “patch writing,” this type of
plagiarism involves using part of someone else’s work and adding your own work to it. This
includes “copy/paste” and “find and replace” plagiarism, where you replace certain words or
sections with paraphrased work in an attempt to make it unique.

6. Collaboration Plagiarism

This type of plagiarism involves collaborating on a project but acting like it was done alone. A
group of students may get together to work on the research for a project and then each write his
or her own essay based on the research. Because the work is not entirely original and that of the
student claiming it, this is plagiarism.

7. Contributing Author Plagiarism

Similarly, not crediting an author or editor who contributes to the work is considered plagiarism.
For instance, if you and your partner work together on the project but only one of you gets credit,
the person receiving credit is actually plagiarizing some of the work. Additionally, if someone
edits your work and makes significant changes in the process, that person should be credited to
avoid plagiarism.

8. Aggregated Plagiarism

An essay or paper doesn’t have to be a word-for-word copy of another work to be plagiarism. If

your paper is based on another paper and uses the same ideas and the same sources, it may be
aggregated plagiarism. Rewriting the language used does not make the paper or essay unique if
the sources and ideas are the same.

9. Outline Plagiarism
Similarly, using the same structure with new information is considered plagiarism. Outline
plagiarism, also called “retweet plagiarism,” uses the outline of another paper. The thesis
statement is the same, as are the basic points in each paragraph. The sources and actual writing
may be unique, but the paper or essay is not entirely original content.

10. Bibliography Plagiarism

Passing off research done by someone else is also a form of plagiarism. If you use the
bibliography from another paper, you are plagiarizing that research. Even if you write a paper
that is unique and has a different thesis, the research is not yours. On a similar note, extending a
bibliography with sources not used in the paper is a form of plagiarism too.

11. Secondary Source Plagiarism

If your paper mentions primary sources and cites those properly but then uses info from
secondary sources without citing them, you are committing secondary source plagiarism. For
instance, you may have some interviews you did with early settlers in your community, and you
may properly cite those sources. However, if you also bring in information from some newspaper
articles from the era you’re describing and don’t cite the articles in your sources, you are
committing plagiarism.

12. Accidental Plagiarism

Finally, it’s possible to accidentally plagiarize other work if you are doing a lot of research for a
paper. You may come across ideas and forget where you saw them, thinking they are your own.
You may even be influenced by the language used in a piece of writing and inadvertently use the
same language in your work. This kind of plagiarism is difficult to avoid, but making notes and
trying to be aware of what you read can help.

Software to check plagiarism