"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
The Real Problem with Fareed Zakaria Isn't His Plagiarism
"Piling on to the story of Fareed Zakaria runs counter to some of my favorite journalistic rules."
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Well, the main problem with plagiarism is that it kills the originality, and Fareed Zakaria cloud have avoided being recognized as a plagiarist if he had ever tried to use a high-quality plagiarism checker to make sure that any of his line does not exists on the internet.
Question. Can you not just simply give credit to the man who wrote the phrase, sentence, or paragraph and be done with it or do you have to give everything, author, publisher, year, volumn, number etc?
Glock,
It would be difficult for someone to charge plaigarism if you credited the source in some way at all, even incorrectly. However, it is important to provide enough information so that a reader can seek out the exact source themselves and verify that what you have presented is an accurate portrayal of the source. If you don't document the exact source, you are opening yourself up to the charge of misrepresenting the source....or making it up since no one can find the source.
This is especially true when there are more than one volume or edition of the work, it is an obscure source, or if it is a translation. For instance, if you quote the Bible, you really ought to provide the version, and when it was printed, since Bible translations have changed frequently and dramatically.
mh,
I guess I am probably going to be a plagarist, but I would have to assume as long as I am not making any money off the quote I would be safe. I have grammerly that checks for plagarism but it is good only up to a given point. A lot of times the best I can do is give the author credit because I can't remember the source or even if I do not know the person I will usually indicate I do not recall who said it. Guess I'll have to wait for a plagarist suit to be filed and hope the judge recognizes it was not an intentional effort. Intent I have to believe plays an enormous role in plagarism, and how much of the material was used. I have quoted up to three maybe four paragraphs and usually with this much I know who said it, when, and where.
Thanks for the info. I shall attempt to be a bit more cautious or learn to paraphrase much better.