Plagiarism: Words and ideas

TL;DR

This paper distinguishes between copying words and ideas in academic plagiarism, emphasizing that copying words with no original ideas is less serious than stealing ideas, and argues for clearer categorization of plagiarism types.

Contribution

It clarifies the distinction between word copying and idea theft in plagiarism, proposing that only the latter should be considered serious academic misconduct.

Findings

Copying words without ideas is of marginal importance.

Stealing ideas is a more serious form of plagiarism.

Clear distinctions can improve academic integrity policies.

Abstract

Plagiarism is a crime against academy. It deceives readers, hurts plagiarized authors, and gets the plagiarist undeserved benefits. However, even though these arguments do show that copying other people's intellectual contribution is wrong, they do not apply to the copying of words. Copying a few sentences that contain no original idea (e.g. in the introduction) is of marginal importance compared to stealing the ideas of others. The two must be clearly distinguished, and the 'plagiarism' label should not be used for deeds which are very different in nature and importance. Keywords: academic dishonesty; academic integrity; academic misconduct; cheating; copyright infringement; ethics; intellectual property; research misconduct