by Patrick Sills

Created on: August 08, 2010

Plagiarism. In the world of creative expression, this is a dirty word. Plagiarism can roughly be defined as using someone else’s words and calling them your own. It also applies to music, but this article is intended to focus on the written word. In short, we’re talking about theft here. Obviously, if you copy a passage from an article word for word while composing a written piece of work and fail to give credit to the person or persons who created them, you have committed flagrant plagiarism. In the academic disclipines, plagiarism has been a very common problem. With the onset of the Internet, stealing another’s words has become even more widespread. This comes as no surprise, for the information at one’s disposal on the World Wide Web (factual or otherwise) makes the old World Book Encyclopedia look like a microscopic speck of dust by comparison. Due to the immense wealth of information stored in our computers, complex and expensive software must be employed to catch someone who has committed such an act. Conversely, not long ago, educators were able to detect plagiarism relatively easily.

Now here’s where things get complicated: Even when you duplicate another writer’s ideas and reword them, this can still be construed as plagiarism. Is this really fair? The concept of common knowledge is supposed to render one exempt from this violation. For example, if someone writes: “The Statue of Liberty is in New York,” this will generally be accepted as such. But how about this? “The surface temperature on Venus averages over 900 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Should something such as the latter of these two passages always be required to cite a source? What if this is something the author remembered from elementary school 40 years earlier? Should the science book they learned it from be given mention? Should the long-dead or retired teacher be quoted?

Oftentimes, credibility is said to be the key. Thus, in the previous instance, if such a passage was written by Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan, then it would be presumed to be correct, and so no sources are required. But let’s suppose a cab driver or someone who buses tables just happens to know this. Moreover, what if they don’t remember where or when this information was obtained? If the facts are accurate, should a lay person still be required to name a source? In this author‘s opinion, the answer is no. The reason? What is common knowledge

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