If the publishing industry adopted a biblical warning for writers, Leviticus 19:11 would be particularly appropriate: \u201cYou shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.\u201d The verse obviously was not written with websites, digital publishing, research databases, or twenty-first-century authors in mind, but its underlying principle translates surprisingly well.<\/p>\n
Writers have more information available to them than at any other time in publishing history. That access can make research faster and richer, but it also makes it remarkably easy to copy, paste, paraphrase, save, and reuse another person\u2019s work without maintaining a clear record of where the material originated.<\/p>\n
At its simplest, plagiarism occurs when someone presents another person\u2019s words, ideas, processes, or other intellectual contributions without giving appropriate credit. The problem is not limited to copying an entire paragraph or chapter; writers can also plagiarize ideas or closely reproduce someone else\u2019s expression while making only superficial changes. (Office of Research Integrity<\/a>)<\/p>\n That distinction matters for authors because research often becomes woven into a manuscript gradually. A quotation copied into notes in January may look surprisingly familiar when the writer encounters it again in June, especially if the source information was not recorded alongside it.<\/p>\n Writers sometimes use plagiarism<\/em> and copyright infringement<\/em> interchangeably, but they describe different problems. Plagiarism is fundamentally about attribution and representing someone else\u2019s contribution as your own, while copyright law governs legal rights in protected expression.<\/p>\n The difference becomes clearer when we consider ideas. Copyright generally does not protect ideas themselves, although it may protect the particular way an author expresses those ideas; plagiarism, however, can involve taking another person\u2019s distinctive idea without acknowledgment and presenting it as one\u2019s own. (U.S. Copyright Office<\/a>)<\/p>\n The reverse can also happen. A writer could clearly identify and credit the author of a protected passage yet still use more copyrighted material than the law permits without permission, which means attribution alone does not automatically resolve a copyright question.<\/p>\n That is why writers need to think about both<\/strong> issues. The ethical question is whether you have properly acknowledged what came from someone else, while the copyright question is whether you have the legal right to use the protected material in the manner you intend.<\/p>\n When you reproduce another writer\u2019s exact words, quotation marks or appropriate block-quotation formatting should make clear which language belongs to the source. The writer should also identify the source according to whatever citation or attribution system is appropriate for the book.<\/p>\n Quoting someone accurately does not mean dropping a passage into a manuscript and adding the author’s name somewhere nearby. Readers should be able to distinguish clearly between your language and the quoted language and, when appropriate, determine where the original material came from.<\/p>\n One common form of accidental plagiarism occurs when a writer believes a passage has been paraphrased because several words have been replaced with synonyms or the sentence structure has been rearranged. A legitimate paraphrase expresses the source material genuinely in the writer\u2019s own language and still credits the original source. (Purdue OWL<\/a>)<\/p>\n This is especially important when writers work directly beside an open source document. The original phrasing can quietly seep into the new version, producing what is sometimes called patchwriting<\/em>: language that appears different at first glance but still follows the source too closely.<\/p>\n A better approach is to read the source until you understand the idea, move away from the original wording, explain the concept independently, and then compare your version with the source. You should still cite the source because changing the wording does not transform someone else\u2019s research or idea into your own.<\/p>\n The original version of this article advised writers to restrict quotations to 300 words unless they obtained permission. We should remove that statement because U.S. copyright law contains no universal rule allowing 300 words, 200 words, 10 percent, or any other predetermined amount of copyrighted material to be copied automatically.<\/p>\n Fair use is evaluated case by case. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act, courts consider the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and significance of what was used, and the effect of the use on the market for the original work. (U.S. Copyright Office<\/a>)<\/p>\nPlagiarism and Copyright Infringement Are Not the Same Thing<\/h2>\n
Quoting a Source<\/h2>\n
Paraphrasing Is More Than Changing a Few Words<\/h2>\n
There Is No Universal \u201c300-Word Rule\u201d<\/h2>\n