Plagiarism comes from the Latin term “plaga” which means ‘to trap’ or ‘kidnap’ and is defined simply as using another person’s intellectual material without acknowledgement [1].  Copyright infringements are different in that they often violate specific copyright laws [2].  Plagiarism has turned out to be a significant ethical issue in the research-based writing community especially in higher education [3, 4] that can have profound consequences [5].  Most US institutions have well-defined repercussions (especially for plagiarism) outlined in the institutions academic catalog [6] and also in their web-accessible (or printed) student handbooks [7].  Additionally every incoming college freshman usually in a first-semester writing class, is taught the appropriate way to source items using the correct American Pschycological Association (APA) or Modern Language Association (MLA) writing styles [8].  To make appropriate use of the “fair-use” doctrine for copyrighted materials [9] and to avoid instances of plagiarism altogether, one does need to use the freely available Google-search tool [10] or other freely available “plagiarism checkers” [11].  ChemCannon will abide by the rules of conduct outlined in the Wesley College catalog [6] and will reference quoted material (within our blogs) in a writing style deemed appropriate [7, 8, 12] on this platform.

References:

1.  http://www.wadsworth.com/english_d/special_features/plagiarism/definition.html (accessed February 2010)


2. http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/wp/copyright/copyrightlaw.htm (accessed February 2010)


3. http://www.rbs2.com/plag.htm (accessed February 2010)


4. http://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-articles/plagiarism.htm (accessed February 2010)


5. http://www.helium.com/items/1475406-the-consequences-of-plagiarism (accessed February 2010)


6. http://www.wesley.edu/images/pdfs/2007-2008_catalog.pdf (pgs. 18-19; accessed February 2010)


7. http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html (accessed February 2010)


8. http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=337 (accessed February 2010)


9. http://www.theiplawblog.com/archives/-copyright-law-does-an-antiplagiarism-service-violate-students-copyrights.html (accessed February 2010)


10. http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/02/09/5-reasons-google-is-my-primary-plagiarism-checker/ (accessed February 2010)


11.  http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/ (accessed February 2010)


12. http://www.pharmainfo.net/instructions-authors (accessed February 2010)