This essay examines the conceptual difficulties in defining and preventing plagiarism in academic contexts. The author argues that while intentional academic dishonesty is clearly wrong, plagiarism itself is harder to define given how ideas are absorbed unconsciously from culture and education. The paper distinguishes between plagiarism (unintentional use of others' ideas) and academic dishonesty (conscious deception), analyzes systemic pressures that motivate cheating, surveys historical precedents for idea-sharing, and concludes that institutions bear equal responsibility with students—by emphasizing genuine learning over grades, schools can reduce the incentive to cheat.
Julian Sanchez writes in an annoyed response to court rulings on sampling in the music industry: "This article is plagiarized. Every word in it has been brazenly 'sampled' from a book, the dictionary, and 'remixed' into a news story." His phrasing perfectly encapsulates the real problems in defining and avoiding plagiarism. In attempting to express a personal understanding and interpretation of plagiarism, the challenge becomes immediately apparent: despite the most sincere effort to develop such an interpretation, the task seems bound to failure.
In a moment of sarcasm, one might fear plagiarizing from the honor codes of universities across the nation by merely repeating the standard definition of plagiarism—which involves not only "using another writer's words without proper citation" but also "using another writer's ideas without proper citation." These definitions appear verbatim in student handbooks wherever English is spoken. Yet the problem is more significant than this flippancy might suggest. It is genuinely difficult to entirely document one's sources in many cases. If, for example, one were to write an essay about politics, how could one possibly separate supposedly original thought from arguments and ideas absorbed for years growing up in an atmosphere of political debate, listening to NPR every morning as an alarm sounded, or reading the newspaper over breakfast?
The mind absorbs facts and ideas unconsciously—about Egyptian pyramids, about drug arrest statistics, about countless historical and cultural matters—yet one could rarely recall the precise source or author of such recollections. Indeed, for many papers, the writing process involves composing the bulk of the material first, then going to the library or internet to find sources to which one can attribute knowledge, just in case it is uncommon knowledge. This essay began with the conviction that plagiarism is impossible to define and perhaps unhealthy to prohibit, supported by the ideals of postmodern thought. Yet after researching the topic, one discovers that these very ideas were already developed in published sources by scholars like Lynnell Edwards, Rebecca Moore Howard, and others—raising the specter once more of the impossibility of avoiding the repetition of ideas and the problem of their commodification.
The lack of clarity on plagiarism is a primarily philosophical issue. The most obvious cases of plagiarism are certainly recognizable: consciously quoting someone else's exact words, phraseology, or ideas while intentionally disregarding citation is an obvious and dishonest form of plagiarism. It is clear that it is academically dishonest to pass off someone else's work as one's own.
Yet there exists a crucial distinction between plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Plagiarism might occur without one being entirely conscious of wrongdoing, as the mind constructs its own opinions and ideas from the prefabricated ideas of its predecessors and cultural influences. Academic dishonesty, by contrast, cannot be accidental. Dishonesty is defined by conscious deception. When one chooses to appropriate elements of another's work and attempt to pass it off as one's own, one is becoming academically dishonest. While plagiarism is the "theft" of commodified ideas, academic dishonesty is the deliberate choice to commit that theft. Of course, dishonesty in any form is wrong.
What provokes students to be academically dishonest? Much of the problem lies in the degree of pressure that school exerts. Primary education often does not focus on true learning but rather on producing students who can pass standardized tests. Students are then thrown into a college environment with little ability to synthesize ideas and a strong need to graduate. Society presents college not as an end in itself but as a requirement for future success: "Go to college so you can get ahead in life," say parents, teachers, social leaders, and advertisements.
In a capitalist country, the focus on success is so high as to obscure any wrongdoing along the way. If success in college is necessary as a mere prerequisite to "real life," and not as a goal in itself, then any method necessary to compete may seem justifiable. This problem escalates when other students are seen to be cheating. Grades are often assigned on a curve, so that students who cheat perform significantly better than those who do not, creating a perception that plagiarism is necessary to compete. The power inequality between teachers and students means that students fear relying on their own abilities when failure could seriously impede their future livelihood.
As school becomes part of a cutthroat capitalistic system in terms of competition and uneven power distribution, the idea of holding words in common becomes increasingly attractive. If there could be a system based less on hard grades and more on actual dialogue and the process of individual learning and improvement, some of the impetus for plagiarism might dissolve. Research on this topic confirms the concern: "Students may also not be as personally interested in their own education versus their career aspirations . . . Even students who are concerned about the learning part of their education may justify plagiarism based on the fear that others are already cheating, causing 'unfair competition.'"
The ease with which one can plagiarize today is no doubt a contributor as well. Hundreds of "custom term paper" websites exist online. For a struggling student, they are seductive: one can have a custom paper written with minimal risk, and traditional plagiarism detection cannot catch these papers. Charging between twelve and forty-eight dollars per page (while paying their writers between six and twenty dollars per page), these paper-writing companies exploit students and their writers alike, convincing otherwise honest students to turn in fraudulent papers while prostituting the abilities of unemployed academics on a global scale.
The concept of plagiarism as a serious offense is oddly modern. For generations, it was not only common but even expected for one generation to begin by copying the last. Painters trained by making copies of masterpieces. Some of the greatest classical music consists of "Variations on a theme," in which the melody itself is "sampled" from another musician. It is difficult to pinpoint even one of Shakespeare's plots that was not borrowed from another source.
According to scholarly work on the history of plagiarism: "Prior to the Enlightenment, plagiarism was useful in aiding the distribution of ideas. An English poet could appropriate and translate a sonnet from Petrarch and call it his own. In accordance with the classical aesthetic of art as imitation, this was a perfectly acceptable practice . . . Leonardo da Vinci was not so much an originator as a synthesizer." The implication is clear: responsible synthesis and honest adaptation of existing ideas is a legitimate intellectual practice, fundamentally different from conscious dishonesty.
It is somewhat ironic that the discussion has centered on student cheating when it seems just as likely that institutions, faculty, and academic establishments are themselves guilty of academic dishonesty. Professors routinely present theories about history, politics, science, and literature to their students as established facts rather than presenting a detailed analysis of the quality of the research behind these claims. Scientific misconduct is documented: more than five percent of scientists admitted to having discarded data because it contradicted their previous research; ten percent admitted inappropriately including their names as authors on published research; and fifteen percent admitted changing a study's results to satisfy a sponsor.
It is not even a secret that political leaders blatantly plagiarize their speeches from speechwriters who are seldom given individual credit or even acknowledgment unless there is a mistake. The burden of academic honesty must not only lay on students but on people at every level of the institution. The biblical principle asks: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
The responsibility of the institution is to carefully explain what is considered plagiarism, discuss its implications and meanings, and potentially formulate an honor code in which students voluntarily agree not to plagiarize—but then to step back and focus not on stomping out every possible plagiarist but instead on creating an environment in which academic dishonesty does not seem necessary to academic success. Focusing on the importance of synthesis and real learning, instead of on repetition and on making-the-grade, is perhaps the most powerful step a school could take. As long as college is about getting a diploma to serve as a passport to future employment instead of being about learning for personal enrichment, cheating will continue.
"A modest framework for honest attribution and synthesis"
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