Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:34, 27 September 2014

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Plagiarism page.

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Plagiarism page.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10Auto-archiving period: 3 months

This page was nominated for deletion on 17 June 2009. The result of the discussion was Speedy Keep.

Webpage evidently copied from Misplaced Pages

Early this hour I found a December 2007 webpage with six paragraphs that almost match much of our biography Astrid Lindgren, sections 1 and 2.

Now I conclude that those six paragraphs were copied from our biography almost verbatim. Vaguely I recall that we have some boilerplate, perhaps a template, for use on our talk page now. At the bottom of Talk:Astrid Lindgren, I made notes that I hope to replace or supplement partly with boilerplate. Do we have it? --P64 (talk) 22:57, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems#Backwards copying: when Misplaced Pages had (or may have had) it first -- PBS (talk) 01:18, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Replacement by talk-page template {{backwardscopy}}  Done.

Thanks. --P64 (talk) 18:46, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Attribution for closely paraphrased PD material

I would like clarification regarding public domain attribution. If an article has a few closely-paraphrased sentences from a public domain source, such as materials authored and published by the U.S. federal government, is it necessary to give that source both the usual inline citation and to specifically identify the source as a public domain source (such as by using an attribution template like {{citation-attribution}})? Or is giving that source the usual inline citation sufficient? Thanks. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 16:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

By consensus, a citation is insufficient - there needs to be notice that content is copied. Alternatively, it is possible to follow more closely with a small amount with in-text attribution. For instance, "The Department of Homeland Security indicates that foo." --Moonriddengirl 10:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Possible or impossible?

Is it possible to plagiarize/violate copyright using the quote = parameter of {{Citation}}? There is at least one editor who thinks it is. Should this twist be addressed in this guideline? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 00:12, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Plagiarize no IMO, as the template associates the quote with the relevant source and so provides fairly precise attribution (assuming the details in the template are correct and complete); copyvio yes, as it would be theoretically possible to violate fair-use requirements. NB: haven't looked at the specific case being discussed there, just speaking to the general issue. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:11, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time swallowing the WP:COPYVIO claim as well. Did you review Fair use? Regardless, should this guideline cover the use of quote =? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 12:50, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I've reviewed that; no, it shouldn't - as I said, unless the citation is flat-out wrong the situation you describe would not be plagiarism. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:10, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

So, I'm not really getting straight answers here. "No, it shouldn't" why? Isn't part of the purpose of this guideline to distinguish between what is plagiarism and what isn't? Why wouldn't you provide guidance for the overzealous editor who has a weak grasp of the definition of plagiarism? Furthermore you made the claim that "copyvio yes, as it would be theoretically possible to violate fair-use requirements". How is that possible given the conditions set forth in Fair use? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 13:39, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

In terms of copyright, it is very possible to violate copyright using the quote parameter. Fair use doesn't provide carte blanche for quotations - the use of quotations is limited by the four factors of fair use. For Misplaced Pages's purposes, fair use is restricted to WP:NFC content and guideline, which does discuss the need to use text transformatively. Very occasionally, an article is listed at WP:CP for overlong quotations. Frequently, these are truncated with a mix of proper paraphrase and more targeted quotes. I agree with Nikkimaria entirely that the case would not be plagiarism - if it's a quotation, it's attributed. A lot of people use the terms plagiarism/copyvio interchangeably, but they are really entirely separate things. In terms of placing that in this guideline, guidelines aren't for outlier issues, generally - if this becomes a common problem, it may be worth defining. But this is the first time that I ever recall hearing of anyone being accused of plagiarism for a quote. --Moonriddengirl 13:43, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I came expecting a thoughtful response and am disappointed as usual. Had our roles been reversed, here's how I would have responded:

• "While it's theoretically possible to violate copyright, you'd really have to go to extremes to do so—extremes like copy-n-pasting the contents of a 900-page book into "quote =" or perhaps scooping someone's highly-anticipated soon-to-be bestseller before publication (though I don't know how you'd do this). In practical terms, however, Misplaced Pages, like any group undertaking, is bound by the lowest common denominator. In the United States, for example, most people's understanding of copyright comes from their middle and high school English teachers who were mostly interested in limiting their workloads. So if Wikipedians see more than a phrase presented verbatim in a citation, they're going to almost certainly cry WP:COPYVIO when the likelihood of the cited author feeling wronged at having two or three sentences quoted verbatim on Misplaced Pages (in a citation verification, nonetheless) is zero. As for your suggestion, we can help you formulate a proposal to add that case to Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism#What is not plagiarism. " -- DanielPenfield (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you're disappointed that you didn't get the response you wanted. :/ I would not give you that response, because it probably wouldn't work out well for you. We have copyright standards on Misplaced Pages. I do not know if your edit fell afoul of them; you didn't ask us to review that, and I didn't look. You asked "is it possible to plagiarize/violate copyright" with the quote field - the answer is probably not and yes, respectively. Those are accurate answers. --Moonriddengirl 17:07, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the dismissal masquerading as a patronizing "message of concern for your well being"... -- DanielPenfield (talk) 17:35, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Right. Thank you for the hostile response to a good faith effort to answer your question honestly. --Moonriddengirl 19:45, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Visual aid on plagiarism and copyvios

Hello everyone, I'd like to suggest an addition that I hope will help editors better understand plagiarism and copyright violations for different types of sources. Having been mostly unfamiliar with concepts like "fair use" and "close paraphrasing" before coming to Misplaced Pages, I've learned quite a bit by navigating the various Misplaced Pages policies, guidelines, information pages, and essays about copyright and plagiarism. However, it's a lot of information spread out across a number of pages, and I thought that to make things clearer for editors who, like I did, have a limited understanding of many of these concepts, it would be helpful to have a visual aid that shows the relationships between them. What I have in mind is something like this:

Does anyone have any thoughts on adding something like this to the page? –Prototime (talk · contribs) 03:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, generally. :) That boils it down nicely. I'm not sure if the plagiarism guideline is the best place - but maybe WP:Copy-paste? I'd do the links a little bit differently. For "Nonfree Source", I'd link to WP:COMPLIC, I think. Misplaced Pages:Copyright violation is a better link for "Copyright violations" than "Misplaced Pages:Copyright violations on history pages", I think. The latter is an historical document and has no real current function. :) And I would nuance "Sparingly" for two reasons: there's more than just sparingly involved in determining if quotation is fair use, and Misplaced Pages doesn't rely on fair use solely. As WP:NFC notes, content should be fair use and compliant with our guideline. I'd probably go with "Sparingly: None (if complies with WP:NFC)". --Moonriddengirl 13:15, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! I had actually meant to link to Misplaced Pages:Copyright violations and not WP:Copyright violations on history pages, but I guess that's what I get for experimenting with this table in VisualEditor ;) I've fixed that above and added in the nuance on "sparingly". I was thinking about including something like this on the Plagiarism guideline (and maybe WP:Copyvio) since it is a more visible page that editors may be more likely to visit, but I suppose that's not a necessity; I agree that WP:Copy-paste would be good place for this too, and perhaps WP:Close paraphrasing. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 16:26, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing

The existing wording is such that an editor has used this guideline to justify close paraphrases that contain the exact creative words as the source material. Apparently, because there is no note under the close paraphrasing description that states this, so are there any objections to adding a note there that states: Note: when close paraphrasing, even with in-text attribution, distinctive words or phrases may require quotation marks.? Rationalobserver (talk) 16:29, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this guideline, as currently written, represents the position of the academic world regarding close paraphrasing and plagiarism:

• Per Wikilegal/Close Paraphrasing, Question: "Is close paraphrasing of a copyrighted work a copyright infringement?" Answer: "Yes. Among other rights, copyright law grants a copyright owner exclusive control over any unauthorized copying of the copyrighted work. Paraphrasing may be construed as copying if it is 'substantially similar' to the copyrighted material. Such paraphrasing infringes on one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner."
• From Bristol: "If you are not quoting other scholars directly, you must express their ideas in your own words: close paraphrasing, where only a few words of each sentence are changed from the original, has no place in academic writing."
• From the University of North Carolina: "Paraphrasing means taking another person’s ideas and putting those ideas in your own words. Paraphrasing does NOT mean changing a word or two in someone else’s sentence, changing the sentence structure while maintaining the original words, or changing a few words to synonyms. If you are tempted to rearrange a sentence in any of these ways, you are writing too close to the original. That’s plagiarizing, not paraphrasing."
• From Cabrillo: "You must put 'quotation marks' around any exact wording that you borrow, including phrases and sometimes even words."
• From Harvard: "When you paraphrase, your task is to distill the source's ideas in your own words. It's not enough to change a few words here and there and leave the rest; instead, you must completely restate the ideas in the passage in your own words. If your own language is too close to the original, then you are plagiarizing, even if you do provide a citation."
• From the University of Virginia: "In general, you will avoid plagiarism if you cite the sources you paraphrase and, if you use words or phrases that are distinctive to your original source, you use quotation marks as well. You should err on the side of attribution and quotation marks if you want to avoid plagiarism."
• From Amherst College: "No matter your intention, close paraphrase may count as plagiarism, even when you cite the source."
• From the University of Maine: "If your paraphrase mimics the original sentence structure of the source, it is considered a close paraphrase, a form of plagiarism."
• From Princeton: "Inserting even short phrases from the source into a new sentence still requires placing quotations around the borrowed words and citing the author. If even one phrase is good enough to borrow, it must be properly set off by quotation marks."
• From the University of Toronto: "A close paraphrase may count as plagiarism, even if you cite the source."
• From Earlham: "If the language of your paraphrase is very close to the original, then to drop the quotation marks and pretend the language is your own is still misleading and dishonest. It is still plagiarism. This is so even if you include a citation. A good paraphrase goes well beyond superficial tinkering with the original language."
• From Bradley University: "In sum, there are essentially five types of plagiarism: Close paraphrasing of another person's work"
• From Donnelly College: "You will also have plagiarism issues if your paraphrasing is too close to the original work. If you have any doubts about your paraphrasing, use quotations."
• From Loyola Marymount: "Unintentional Plagiarism: Paraphrasing too close to the original".
• From Athabasca University: "One particular problem has been with what is called close paraphrasing or patchwork paraphrasing. In patchwork paraphrasing, students copy words and phrases from the original source and connect the words and phrases together with a few extra words of their own. Some students think that by inserting a few words of their own that they have avoided plagiarism, but they are merely disguising it. Disguised plagiarism in the form of patchwork paraphrasing remains plagiarism."
• From Regis University: "Note that close paraphrase, where only trivial changes are made such as substituting similar words, is essentially the same as copying the author directly."
• From Texas A&M University: "Be careful that your paraphrasing is not so close to the original that it would be better to simply use a direct quotation with quotation marks. (Leaving off quotation marks is a large error, even if you have made a parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence or passage; you could face a charge of plagiarism for such an omission.) Use quotation marks every time you use words or phrases from the original source."
• From the University of Queensland: "Close paraphrases of a text are regarded as "plagiarism", just as are unacknowledged quotations. This is defined by the university as "cheating". To "paraphrase" means to restate someone else's statement(s) in your own words. A close paraphrase means minor changes have been made to an original text – for example, phrases have been re-ordered, or synonyms substituted."
• From the University of Notre Dame: "Check your paraphrase against the original text to be sure you have not accidentally used the same phrases or words".
• From the University of the West Indies: "Cosmetic paraphrasing is also plagiarism. This can occur when an acknowledgement is made but the words are so close to the original that what is deemed to have been paraphrased is, in fact, a modified quote." Rationalobserver (talk) 19:21, 27 September 2014 (UTC)