Is Plagiarism GOOD or BAD? What should we do about it?

With the conversation of technology changing the process of news in our industry, my program where journalists, freelancers, authors or broadcasters can post their feeds, novels, clips, etc. to be monitored for copyright, is a vital product to have on the market. While the industry is continually evolving, it is important that professional issues such as copying one's work is kept in the limelight. While the situation is unfortunate, it is obvious that it occurs, but why?

According to one personal University of Michigan web site,

• What is the penalty for plagiarism? "Plagiarism often carries severe penalties (...)"

• Do I have to cite every fact?"If you have any doubt about whether or not you are committing plagiarism, cite your source (...)"

• What if I put someone else's ideas in my own words? "A writer who fails to give appropriate acknowledgment when repeating another's wording or particularly apt term, paraphrasing another's argument, or presenting another's line of thinking is guilty of plagiarism"

• Why does plagiarism matter?Careers and reputations have been damaged by findings of plagiarism. Journalists have been fired from the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. A Harvard psychiatrist resigned after a finding of plagiarism against him. Art Buchwald sued Paramount Pictures (and won) over the idea for the plot of Coming to America.
  

Lauren Fry of the Morning News suggested that plagiarism is a GOOD thing because it has forced teachers to catch up on technology. Within the journalism aspect, the issue has forced old school writers to come into the times of the Internet and rising technology.

Slate writer Jack Shafer offers more reasoning behind the act in "Why Plagiarists Do It, Because They Can." Most often when plagiarism happens, people claim it was 'unintentional' to others, they feel they didn't properly credit someone.

According to Shafer:

The standard rundown of plagiarism excuses includes accidental copying, occupational or personal stress, and even mental illness, as in the case of former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair.

Some of these underlying reasons are: Writers accepting work beyond their talent, the difficulty of writing in the overall, the thrill of the act, sabotaging a boss you are not fond of, or overcoming the habit in itself.

Read the original article here.

After simply googling variations of keywords including the issues, I have discovered a multitude of information that calls out for help. To take that step forward in changing negative to positive, the overall stigma of what a journalist is and does can be changed for society to take it or leave it.

Other Links in reference to this article:
Poynter Online, Check for Plagiarism
Poynter Online, Great Journalists Credit Others

Usually within blogs, I do not being confined to one topic, so as my duty of fulfilling my assignment, I will attempt to incorporate some other thoughts about this week's readings of online effectiveness with my topic, in hopes to further expand the knowledge base of my readers.

My personal thoughts on the role of Journalism includes that it should inform, educate, further expand the thoughts and opinion of its reader, entertain and most importantly, get the facts. With my blog and concept idea, I hope to ultimately educate others on copyright issues and how they can protect their works. It will be a resource for students and researchers because of its attempt to solve a major industry problem, plagarism (See related link for more industry information).

With direct attribution to Wikipedia, plagiarism is defined as: “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work. Unlike cases of forgery, in which the authenticity of the writing, document, or some other kind of object, itself is in question, plagiarism is concerned with the issue of false attribution.”

With the focus of TV online websites being more video-oriented (according to Feedroom CEO Jon Klein), my addition of video feeds to the copy check is in great relation to the rising need within our industry for its safety as well. We can all agree that stories are scooped more readily on the Net. However, the need for more unique content is obvious.

Take for example, my daily work as a freelance writer (see my writing blog for more happenings). Part of my work involves being hired to write content articles about various topics. Because of my experience, I can write about almost anything. However, there was a time where I would need to do surface research before beginning to compose articles. This is similar to that of research for academic writing in universities. We view the research and ultimately, incorporate it with our own voice into our assignments. The new phenomenon however occurs in that someone feels they can lift paragraphs or perhaps even whole texts of article and repost, reproduce and/or reprint them with their byline on them.

Why does this occur?

First of all, I think in general many people are not aware of the extreme legal action that can be taken for doing this.

Dan Brown, writer of The DaVinci Code, was argued of plagiarizing parts of this bestseller. A lawsuit pursued, in which, he won. Details are here.

Secondly, perhaps these individuals were not taught correctly about the act or perhaps they don't see it as a moral issue, simply a large sum of money will fix their problem. The real problem however exists in the written voice of individuals.

As writers, we struggle to establish our own voice that readers can identify with. We all have our favorite journalists or novelists, in which we could read a paragraph or two of the piece and know it was a specific writer composing it without first looking for the byline. This is what makes journalism and writing so intriguing and ultimately fulfilling to me. I do not want my voice passed off as someone else's. My concept idea will work towards fighting for that notion.

A Chick Lit Copy News Story

After reading through Poynter tonight, I discovered a recent story of a girl from Suburban New Jersey who wrote a chick lit book about a girl who is the daughter of Indian Doctors in Suburban NJ (autobiographical). The author, 19 year old Ivy League college student Kaavya Viswanathan, had a $500,000 two-book contract as well as a DreamWorks movie deal. However, a few pages were extremely identical to Megan F. McCafferty earlier novels entitled "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings."

This example is not only exactly what I am addressing with my program but also alerts me that maybe including something for authors within my program will be beneficial as well. This is all a work in progress.

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=52&aid=100604

Getting Started

FROM: http://foxweb.marist.edu/users/lori.crispi/images/plagiarism.gif

As a writer, especially working extensively online, I have had trouble with my work being used in other outlets that I haven't given permission for. Within my New Media class, I decided that a product that allows journalists/writers to upload their clips and/or video feeds would allow monitoring of the use of their work throughout the Internet. This program idea will be explained in more detail in the next few weeks. I ultimately would like to use this idea as a means of a business proposal to help it to be created for the industry as a whole.