Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V. Or copy-paste. It's that easy to pass off someone's work as your own. But plagiarism is not only unethical, it can also be a crime: you can be hauled off to court for stealing someone else's intellectual property, be it a paragraph from a newspaper article or a chapter from a book. If that's the case, why does plagiarism continue? And what can writers and editors do about it?
Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at The Poynter Institute, explains how, in the post-Jayson Blair era, plagiarism has "become a more mundane, run-of-the-mill crime". And, in her column, she also provides advice and simple tips to both writers and editors on how to avoid the plagiarism trap.
Here's one of her suggestions for writers:
And a suggestion for editors:
Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at The Poynter Institute, explains how, in the post-Jayson Blair era, plagiarism has "become a more mundane, run-of-the-mill crime". And, in her column, she also provides advice and simple tips to both writers and editors on how to avoid the plagiarism trap.
Here's one of her suggestions for writers:
Do not cut and paste information from other sources into your notes pages. Instead, create bullet points where you synthesize the information in your own words and note the original source.
And a suggestion for editors:
Require your writers to attribute.
To read the column in its entirety, and you must if you are a media student, go to "Why Plagiarism Continues & What Writers, Editors Can Do About It".
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