If you need any translation help let me know.

In some instances, though, plagiarism is a career stopper, or at least a major setback in a field like journalism or academia.

I think this fits with geographical-based copyright laws, ie, they appear to be outdated in light of how the global internet (in particular) makes it a simple matter to just copy and paste. The point in your last para, really.

I think there’s a huge difference between someone who intentionally steals something, and someone who does it inadvertantly, to some extent.

If I fail to acknowledge the source of an idea through oversight or confusion, I may be technically guilty of plagiarism. But was that my intent?

In your post about The New PR conference, you didn’t explicitly credit the graphic image’s designer. In fact, you probably had implicit or explicit permission to use the image for promoting the conference. In the context of your post, I certainly didn’t feel you were somehow claiming credit for the design.

Does your omission of a design credit make you a thief? If I include a quotation mark on the end of a quote but inadvertantly cut off the quotation mark at the beginning of a quote does that mean I’ve plagiarized the quote?

Anyone who thinks this stuff is black and white is ignoring the reality of how people write and share information these days.

…you can’t be sure that anything you read is original. Even this.

- makes total sense, then.

I just read the stories at those links, Bryan, especially the Poynter piece with the comment from NY Magazine spokeswoman Betsy Burton.

Does the fact that the article is a plagiarization (is that a real word?) detract from anything in the article itself, though? I don’t think so.

And Eric, re your final point that not every plagiarist blatantly copies others’ work with every intent of passing it off as their own, the fact that they commit plagiarism doesn’t excuse that, wouldn’t you say?

Here’s a note from the Media Orchard blog:
http://www.ideagrove.com/blog/2006/05/new-york-magazine-has-fun-with_09.html

And another from Poynteronline:
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11408

I think David Edelstein is being a bit simplistic when he suggests the only way people plagiarize is by intentionally copying others’ writing.

This assumes that all writers are very organized, and keep their electronic clippings separate from their own notes. It also assumes that people who have extremely good memories for retrieving blocks of text have equally good organizational skills.

I suppose if no one had ADD, or was disorganized, or was sloppy when on deadline, I could agree with his zero tolerance stance. For my part, I continue to believe in the fallibility of the human mind.

Yes, some plagiarists blatantly copy others’ work with every intent of passing it off as their own. I just don’t believe that’s true in every case.