Subject: EDQ #3: Plagiarism
Posted by: LeoDaVinci
Date: Apr 08 13
Plagiarism - The Big P
In this day and age where vast amounts of information are easily accessible at the click of a mouse, it's very easily to lose one's self in the formidable pile of research that you might encounter. Yea, it's easy to be overwhelmed when you don't know much about a certain subject (and sometimes even if you do) and to fall into the trap of plagiarism. While most people understand some forms of plagiarism, it's a much more complicated subject than you might initially think. FunTrivia enforces a strict no-tolerance policy for all forms of plagiarism and it's easy to get dismayed if an editor points out to you that you've done so in a question or in a quiz.
First of all, what is plagiarism? Dictionary.com describes it as "an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own...". Let's look at that definition closely:
When you copy and paste from another website, or copy word-for-word out of a book or other reference material, this is the easiest type of plagiarism that you can commit. You take another person's work and you're using it in the information of your quiz as though you wrote it yourself. I'm sure you can all agree with me how wrong that is. Even if you change a few words while using a thesaurus while keeping the original sentence as is, it's still considered copying someone else's work.
What does FunTrivia require of us? Well, as mentioned before about interesting information, we're required to give at least one sentence, if not more, of original interesting information for each and every answer to our questions in a quiz. This means that you're going to have to do some work, especially if you're not up-to-speed on all of the ins and outs of a particular topic that you're writing about. Using a quote is usually great, but, it doesn't count as part of the original sentences that you're required to write. A quote or sourced work is great to help punctuate your interesting information and to get your point across, similar to what I did above with the quote from dictionary.com, however, again, it doesn't go towards the final sentence count.
Can I plagiarize myself? If you copy your own work from another site, a paper you might have written once, or another quiz on this site, you're still plagiarizing if you don't cite your source.
A technique of mine to avoid plagiarism is as follows. Say I'm writing a quiz about sea birds and I have a question about the Marbled murrelet, something I know literally nothing about, what do I do? The first thing I do is I look up the Marbled murrelet in Google and I open up a few sources, and not necessarily Wikipedia. I'll read through these sources and, though some information might be similar in some of the sources I have, it's important to read through all of the parts I want to draw inspiration from. I'll take a pen and paper (or sometimes I'll open up a text file in Notepad) and I'll write down some dry facts and numerical data, things that I can't be expected to remember unless I was the world's leading expert on these birds (and even then, I'd probably look it up anyway). Finally I'll CLOSE all of my sources that I've read through and I'll write a short paragraph of interesting information about the Marbled murellet for my quiz. By closing all of the sources after I've read through them, it ensures that I will not copy anything, and by reading through more than one source, my mind retains the information that's actually INTERESTING and that's what I will write down. In my own words, naturally. I'll use my notes to insert the numerical information, and I'll have a good paragraph about a sea bird I knew nothing about before I wrote my quiz. The paragraph might look something like this:
"The Marbled murrelet is a small seabird that lives on the North American side of the northern Pacific Ocean, mostly in Alaska. They generally reach a size of up to 25cm in length and their clutch of eggs consists of only one egg. Generally considered to be an endangered species with an, the Marbled murrelet nests in old forests with large trees and the logging industry on the west coast of North America is severely limiting the nesting grounds for these birds. Other than humans, however, the murrelets can fall prey to Steller's jay and to the common raven. They generally feed on small saltwater fish and invertebrates, though some rare sightings have seen these plump birds feeding in freshwater lakes."
This paragraph was done with the help of several websites, none of them wikipedia. I'm not against wikipedia, however, it is generally preferred that if you do use a quote in your interesting information, please quote from a more credible website.
In any case, I've outlined all the ways that you might plagiarize, and one method to avoid it. You're all free to find your own ways to do research, but remember, if you need to give credit, please do it. It is clear to all the editors that there are only so many ways to state certain facts, for instance, "The peak of Mount Everest rises 8848m above sea level." However, if I wrote: "On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper, and Tenzing Norgay, an acclaimed Sherpa climber, became the first to reach the roof of the world.", it's clear that the information was lifted off of factmonster.com.
FunTrivia doesn't allow any form of plagiarism. None. If your quiz is found to have material from another source in it that's unattributed, an editor will call you out on it. This doesn't mean that you've been blacklisted forever, and you're given a chance to correct your mistake. However, insistence that you've done no wrong, or repeated attempts to slip copied information past the editors will result in a loss of your authorship privileges for a period. Afterwards, repeated infractions can result in longer losses of writing privileges up to a permanent ban. This only happens in extreme cases.
We're all humans and we all make mistakes. However, this is one mistake we all can avoid if we put a little bit of effort into our research and make sure that everything we write in our quizzes and in our questions is in our own words.
I look forward to seeing all of your quizzes in the queues.
Posted by: LeoDaVinci
Date: Apr 08 13
Plagiarism - The Big P
In this day and age where vast amounts of information are easily accessible at the click of a mouse, it's very easily to lose one's self in the formidable pile of research that you might encounter. Yea, it's easy to be overwhelmed when you don't know much about a certain subject (and sometimes even if you do) and to fall into the trap of plagiarism. While most people understand some forms of plagiarism, it's a much more complicated subject than you might initially think. FunTrivia enforces a strict no-tolerance policy for all forms of plagiarism and it's easy to get dismayed if an editor points out to you that you've done so in a question or in a quiz.
First of all, what is plagiarism? Dictionary.com describes it as "an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own...". Let's look at that definition closely:
When you copy and paste from another website, or copy word-for-word out of a book or other reference material, this is the easiest type of plagiarism that you can commit. You take another person's work and you're using it in the information of your quiz as though you wrote it yourself. I'm sure you can all agree with me how wrong that is. Even if you change a few words while using a thesaurus while keeping the original sentence as is, it's still considered copying someone else's work.
What does FunTrivia require of us? Well, as mentioned before about interesting information, we're required to give at least one sentence, if not more, of original interesting information for each and every answer to our questions in a quiz. This means that you're going to have to do some work, especially if you're not up-to-speed on all of the ins and outs of a particular topic that you're writing about. Using a quote is usually great, but, it doesn't count as part of the original sentences that you're required to write. A quote or sourced work is great to help punctuate your interesting information and to get your point across, similar to what I did above with the quote from dictionary.com, however, again, it doesn't go towards the final sentence count.
Can I plagiarize myself? If you copy your own work from another site, a paper you might have written once, or another quiz on this site, you're still plagiarizing if you don't cite your source.
A technique of mine to avoid plagiarism is as follows. Say I'm writing a quiz about sea birds and I have a question about the Marbled murrelet, something I know literally nothing about, what do I do? The first thing I do is I look up the Marbled murrelet in Google and I open up a few sources, and not necessarily Wikipedia. I'll read through these sources and, though some information might be similar in some of the sources I have, it's important to read through all of the parts I want to draw inspiration from. I'll take a pen and paper (or sometimes I'll open up a text file in Notepad) and I'll write down some dry facts and numerical data, things that I can't be expected to remember unless I was the world's leading expert on these birds (and even then, I'd probably look it up anyway). Finally I'll CLOSE all of my sources that I've read through and I'll write a short paragraph of interesting information about the Marbled murellet for my quiz. By closing all of the sources after I've read through them, it ensures that I will not copy anything, and by reading through more than one source, my mind retains the information that's actually INTERESTING and that's what I will write down. In my own words, naturally. I'll use my notes to insert the numerical information, and I'll have a good paragraph about a sea bird I knew nothing about before I wrote my quiz. The paragraph might look something like this:
"The Marbled murrelet is a small seabird that lives on the North American side of the northern Pacific Ocean, mostly in Alaska. They generally reach a size of up to 25cm in length and their clutch of eggs consists of only one egg. Generally considered to be an endangered species with an, the Marbled murrelet nests in old forests with large trees and the logging industry on the west coast of North America is severely limiting the nesting grounds for these birds. Other than humans, however, the murrelets can fall prey to Steller's jay and to the common raven. They generally feed on small saltwater fish and invertebrates, though some rare sightings have seen these plump birds feeding in freshwater lakes."
This paragraph was done with the help of several websites, none of them wikipedia. I'm not against wikipedia, however, it is generally preferred that if you do use a quote in your interesting information, please quote from a more credible website.
In any case, I've outlined all the ways that you might plagiarize, and one method to avoid it. You're all free to find your own ways to do research, but remember, if you need to give credit, please do it. It is clear to all the editors that there are only so many ways to state certain facts, for instance, "The peak of Mount Everest rises 8848m above sea level." However, if I wrote: "On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper, and Tenzing Norgay, an acclaimed Sherpa climber, became the first to reach the roof of the world.", it's clear that the information was lifted off of factmonster.com.
FunTrivia doesn't allow any form of plagiarism. None. If your quiz is found to have material from another source in it that's unattributed, an editor will call you out on it. This doesn't mean that you've been blacklisted forever, and you're given a chance to correct your mistake. However, insistence that you've done no wrong, or repeated attempts to slip copied information past the editors will result in a loss of your authorship privileges for a period. Afterwards, repeated infractions can result in longer losses of writing privileges up to a permanent ban. This only happens in extreme cases.
We're all humans and we all make mistakes. However, this is one mistake we all can avoid if we put a little bit of effort into our research and make sure that everything we write in our quizzes and in our questions is in our own words.
I look forward to seeing all of your quizzes in the queues.
48 replies. On page 1 of 3 pages. 1 2 3
pollucci19 
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Great points Leo and it's a subject that we need to constantly reminded of. I've always considered plagiarism to be similar to rust ... it sneaks up on you. It can catch you out when you get blase about your writing, when you rush, simply want to get a quiz over the line ... even when you're so engrossed in what you're writing that you fail to take in what you've done. Reply #1. Apr 09 13, 12:46 PM |
alexis722
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Agreed. And that's why the editors are so important - they can see what the writer can't. It's kinda like having children or pets, and at the first one we tend to take things personally and sometimes are hurt if our child/cat/quiz is not admired. Of course, nobody ever says, "That's one ugly baby!" But comments like, "Oops there's a hair out of place, but isn't he cute!", or, "Maybe the baby needs changing" - and then we can look with 'new eyes' and see the corrections that need to be made. Reply #2. Apr 09 13, 1:34 PM |
kyleisalive
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I just want to add a bit about plagiarism. Nothing deep about what it is or examples or anything though. We have had our authors' quizzes stolen from FunTrivia on several occasions. They've literally been pulled word-for-word (or close to it) and posted on other major trivia sites, user forums, chatboards, etc. These cases are always done without permission or credit to FunTrivia or the original author. Now imagine being told that someone else wrote your quiz. It can be played on another site, elsewhere, under someone else's name. All that work that you put into it took someone a few minutes to paste together. Doesn't feel too great. We have contacted other sites to remove offending info-- we take these claims very seriously. Your writing is your writing and it's something to take pride in. Some of our best, most prolific authors have fallen victim to these issues. Now look at it the other way-- if we receive a quiz where the info can literally be popped into a search engine and come up with direct or near-direct hits, we're going to be a bit suspicious. And you know what? It happens more than you think-- some authors do this with their very first quiz, some do it further down the line. Word-for-word. That's not fair to the original author and it's not fair to us. Players can read that info elsewhere; we want your writing to shine through and not someone else's. At the same time, it cheapens FunTrivia's quality. Copied info is a major hit to our integrity. I personally strive to encourage authorial voice and integrity in our quizzes, and I see plagiarism as a very serious matter-- all of the editors do. And sometimes, yes, it has slipped through (we know this because players catch it for us). Please know that if we find any info close to a source (be it Wiki or, in some cases, we've actually checked published sources like books, in a library, in our personal time) we are obligated to follow up on it even if it was unintentional. The more serious the offense, obviously, the closer we need to look at proceeding submissions. We're here to work with you and hopefully this EDQ will provide some great tips to keep plagiarism out of our quizzes. There are only so many ways you can say "Song A was released in 1979 by pop musician X and it hit #29 on the Billboard chart." We get that. We know it sounds like Wiki. But there are always ways to cite your source (if you have a source to cite) and there are even better ways to rework your info creatively to avoid copying. Wiki will always sound like Wiki; we can pick up on it without needing to search for it. Make your quizzes yours. Reply #3. Apr 09 13, 2:16 PM |
guitargoddess
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"But there are always ways to cite your source (if you have a source to cite)" Just to add onto this bit - we also don't necessarily want tons of sources in each question or "(info from Wikipedia)" after every sentence of info. Reworking into your own words is the far better course. When you're talking in facts, not citing sources is fine as long as you haven't copied someone else's words. Where it's good (and I'd argue necessary) to give a source is when something isn't exactly a hard fact. Like if you say something like "This Nsync song was Justin Timberlake's favourite". How do you know that? "According to 2001 interview in "Teen People" magazine, this was Justin Timberlake's favourite Nsync song" is much stronger and less open to dispute. And no URLs in your questions please. These can go stale, be "page not found" in the future, or possibly link to stuff that's not family friendly. It's fine to say something like "In an article on the BBC website" rather than giving a direct link. (This is a touch off the plagiarism subject, sorry, but relevant to sources) :) Reply #4. Apr 09 13, 4:07 PM |
jmorrow
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I just wanted to take a moment to distinguish between plagiarism and copyright infringement, as people often confuse the two concepts. Copyright is purely a legal issue, while plagiarism is more of an ethical one. The same act of copying may constitute both plagiarism and copyright infringement, but the two are not interchangeable, and it's possible to commit one act without committing the other. The best way to illustrate this is to provide some examples. Let's say I submit a quiz that contains a 60-word description that I lifted from an essay that has fallen into the public domain. I haven't infringed anyone's copyright, since any copyright in the work has already expired, but I am guilty of plagiarism if I copy the description without attributing my source, as I have passed off someone else's written work as my own. What about the converse scenario? Let's say I'm organizing a pub quiz, and I want to use the questions from a bunch of quizzes from Fun Trivia that I greatly admire. I plan on giving credit to Fun Trivia and the original authors of these quizzes, so I won't be guilty of plagiarism - no one can accuse me of trying to claim credit for someone else's work. However, I'm arguably infringing Fun Trivia's copyright by using these quiz questions without the consent of the owner of the intellectual property. The proper thing to do in such a case is to seek permission to use the questions in the pub quiz. The good news is that Terry has granted such permission in the past, so once I receive his confirmation, I'm good to go. The bottom line: It's possible to plagiarize without infringing copyright, and vice versa, so don't conflate the two concepts. We've had some quiz authors in the past claim that they can't be guilty of plagiarism because they copied the material from a copyright free source, or from a website with liberal copyright or licensing arrangements, like Wikipedia. Just remember: you can still be called out for plagiarism even if you haven't infringed anyone's copyright. jmorrow Movies Editor Reply #5. Apr 09 13, 4:33 PM |
Lpez
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Very interesting info, thank you all. Reply #6. Apr 09 13, 4:36 PM |
Buddy1
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How is using your own work plagiarism? As stated, to plagiarize you must pass off another's work as your own. By definition, you are not another; you are yourself. Therefore, that doesn't fit in with the definition. Reply #7. Apr 09 13, 5:16 PM |
| kyleisalive
|
Firstly, it's a matter of honesty. When you write a work it's expected to be original and, in more formal settings, it's just as serious an issue. Secondly, you've already said it once; why say it again? If a player wanted to read the same info twice, they'd just play the same quiz again. Nothing's stopping them. ;) Once your quiz goes online, it's cached in the system and becomes a part of the overall question pool. If you submitted the same question twice, or three times, or four, or however many (AND got the credit for it in subsequent quizzes for badges, points, etc.) then not only do we have the same, old questions over and over again in the system, but you're getting rewarded several times over for just one question. FunTrivia is not a formal setting (eg. a university or academic institution) but we do need to have standards and rules, especially when plagiarism is as unacceptable as it is. We don't require formal MLA citation or anything like that but we do require that each of your works be original. You wouldn't submit the same essay twice; you'd never write a book, then tweak the names and send it in as a sequel; you wouldn't submit the same quiz or questions twice. If you want to use the same question for two different quizzes, then there are ways to approach it from a different angle. We see this quite a bit, and it's not a bad thing. There are several different ways to approach the same question and info; sometimes it requires a bit more research. Doing so does make the site, as a whole, more comprehensive. Reply #8. Apr 09 13, 5:25 PM |
looney_tunes
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Passing off any unoriginal work as being original is plagiarism. You absolutely can plagiarise yourself. If you tried to submit the same essay for two different courses at school or university, and the teachers discovered that fact, there would certainly be repercussions! In academic circles, you would footnote the reference. For quizzes here, we want new material. If it is already in another quiz (or single question), or available on another website, it is not new. And if it is on another website, it may well be copyright there - if you read the fine print, you will see that you give FunTrivia copyright over the contents of your quiz when you submit it, and the same is probably true for many other sites. As a reminder, here is the fine print written under the button you use to save your quiz: The Fine Print: When you submit this quiz, you are granting FunTrivia, its affiliated companies and necessary sublicensees permission to use your submission, without restrictions and permanently, as per section (11) in our Conditions of Use document. You grant FunTrivia exclusive use of this content. FunTrivia.com reserves the right not to include questions submitted and does not guarantee that submitted quizzes will be placed online. Quizzes submitted may be edited, modified or deleted by our editorial staff at any time. By submitting a quiz, you acknowledge that the questions, answers, and interesting information you have used are in your own words, and have not been copied, either completely or in part, from any copyright protected source or other website (including Wikipedia). Plagiarism will result in the loss of your account. Hands up if you never read the fine print. :) Reply #9. Apr 09 13, 5:27 PM |
LadyCaitriona
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It is possible to plagiarize yourself, by submitting work to two (or more) places without indicating that the work appears elsewhere. While this a more serious offence in academia, there is the problem that the quizzes posted here are copyrighted to FunTrivia. It makes it a bit of a sticky situation for us to post a quiz that you already have hosted on another site, possibly under their copyright. There is some wriggle room, of course, but only if you're forthcoming about the situation ahead of time. I wanted to publish one of the crosswords I had written in my school's newspaper, but I got permission from Terry first and advised the newspaper editor that the quiz was also available online. Terry had no problem with the copyright work being used in the school paper, and the paper was perfectly happy to accept the puzzle for print publication, even though it wasn't 'original'. Reply #10. Apr 09 13, 5:28 PM |
skunkee
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There's not much I can contribute to what's already been said about plagiarism - my fellow editors have done a great job of covering the subject. I would just like to put in another word encouraging original work. I edit in Movies and Celebrities, two categories where plot descriptions are often required. We would much rather you write your own plot description than copy (even if properly cited) the one provided at imdb or any other online site. Quizzes are much better with your own original work instead of a regurgitation of someone else's ideas. Your quiz will likely rate better too! Reply #11. Apr 09 13, 7:48 PM |
agony
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One reason many authors fall into the trap of copying is insecurity. Those of us who don't write as part of our jobs may not have written something expected to be properly punctuated, capitalized, grammatically correct, etc, since we were in school. An author who isn't even 100% sure what is meant by "use complete sentences" (something to do with a subject and verb, right? Or is it an object?...) might want to rely on that solid-looking piece of prose over at another website. My advice is to write the info as if you were telling it to a friend, first draft. Don't worry about getting all your ducks in a row, just convey the information in a way that is natural to you. You can polish it up later. And, about those writing skills? Most of what you need to know to write for FT you learned by the time you were twelve years old. We don't insist on graceful, elegant prose, though we'll take it when we can get it. We're asking for the basics, such as a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence, punctuation at the end, the bones of grammar that you really do know - "I am, he is, they are" rather than "I is, he are, they am". You'll find, too, that the more you do it, the better you get at it. Reply #12. Apr 10 13, 10:07 AM |
LeoDaVinci
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To elaborate on what agony just said, there are many instances of plagiarism that I've found that have been done by authors who are outside of their 'comfort zone'. An author who is used to submitting quizzes in one category and all of a sudden decides to submit a quiz in a different category may feel like a fish out of water when trying to write the interesting information for the new quiz. However, I firmly believe that if you can write a quiz for one category, it's easy to write for them all. You have to have the confidence that your skills will transcend the categories. You will find other editors in other categories who may have a different style of editing. You may encounter different category requirements that you're not used to. Nevertheless, you ARE an author, and you CAN write the quiz! There's no need to doubt your writing skills and there's no reason to use someone else's work as your own. Reply #13. Apr 10 13, 10:58 AM |
| Buddy1
|
I just wanted to clarify that my question was dealing with interesting information from my personal stuff, so it’s not like anybody would have access to it or that one of my questions came from another of my questions. If I used the same college paper for two different papers, that’s understandable. However, I seriously doubt it would matter if I used a couple of sentences from one paper to write another. I’m not saying I’ve done that for my quizzes; I was just getting confused on how my own work is being treated as someone else’s work. Reply #14. Apr 10 13, 11:36 AM |
| kyleisalive
|
Re: "However, I seriously doubt it would matter if I used a couple of sentences from one paper to write another." Many universities force their students to submit all major papers online via sites like 'TurnItIn.com' which scan your papers against their database and your previous papers to ensure that they aren't plagiarized. The professor gets a report listing any red flags and it could result in an immediate fail grade. Scared the bejeezus out of me, lol. Not that I ever copied, but one improper citation would've been an issue. ;) Reply #15. Apr 10 13, 12:28 PM |
| Buddy1
|
That's interesting to know. Whenever I submitted a paper, it was always printed out and handed it to the professor. In the very rare case that didn't happen (either once or twice), I e-mailed the professor my paper and no web sites were used. Reply #16. Apr 10 13, 12:43 PM |
| kyleisalive
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I was required to both give hard copies and perform the upload; not all professors used it, but one in three or four did (in my experience). Reply #17. Apr 10 13, 12:44 PM |
| agony
|
Occasionally we get quiz submissions where the author has used something they have written for, say, their blog. A big problem with that, aside from the "can a person plagiarize him/herself?" issue, is that, well, on the internet, no one knows that you're a dog. It's easy to say "Oh, that's all right, it's my own work so it's not copied" - anybody could say that about anything. So we've just decided not to allow it - we've got enough to do without tracking down people's alter egos all over the net. But, honestly, if you use the same words in your Movie quiz as you did in a letter to your mother last week telling her about the show, we'll never know so I guess it doesn't matter. If it's online or printed somewhere, though - well, if you wrote it once, you can write it again using different words. Reply #18. Apr 10 13, 12:46 PM |
| jmorrow
|
Re: I was just getting confused on how my own work is being treated as someone else’s work. Self-plagiarism is tricky because it doesn't fall neatly into the classic definition of plagiarism. Even though it doesn't involve appropriating someone else's work, it is nevertheless considered intellectually dishonest behavior, in that the writer is misrepresenting an earlier work as new or original. As Kyle has said, we would much rather see authors come up with new and original quizzes and questions, rather than rehashing the same piece of writing again and again. It's also a little unfair to all the other authors on FT who don't repeat themselves, especially when you consider that points and badges are awarded for quiz and question contributions. Imagine what would happen if Kyle suddenly decided to recycle even half of his existing quiz questions - he could have over 750 'new' quizzes overnight! Re: If I used the same college paper for two different papers, that’s understandable. However, I seriously doubt it would matter if I used a couple of sentences from one paper to write another. I hear what you are saying, but please recognize that this is a bit of a slippery slope. It reminds me of the old proverb about the camel and the tent. Where are we supposed to draw the line? There wouldn't be any need to settle that difficult question if you adopt the easy solution of rewriting the material using different words. If you want to be a quiz writer, then do just that. Write. Reply #19. Apr 10 13, 8:36 PM |
zippolover
|
I wrote a quiz after checking a book and two online sources, neither of them Wiki. I put it all into my own words and then checked back to the sources to make sure that I had not accidentally copied. All looked fine to me and I submitted the quiz. Horror of horror, I was pulled for plagiarism. The Editor C&P from the quiz and from Wiki to show why she had flagged me for it. It was very close. A Question. What should an author do to prevent something like this happening? I had rewritten the information that I had found and spent time making sure it was my words, only to find somebody else had done exactly the same thing and put it on Wiki. Reply #20. Apr 11 13, 5:37 AM |
48 replies. On page 1 of 3 pages. 1 2 3
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