Log 04: The Plagiarism Spectrum

 We all know about the existence of plagiarism and of course have a general idea of what it means and what could be considered as plagiarism, but who would've thought there was a whole spectrum of rules and considerations regarding several different types of plagiarism? People who are fond of writing and literature, probably, but most of the people I know aren't, and that includes me.

While I do enjoy a good book every now and then, much like most casual readers, I only pay attention to just that; the contents. There are so many things to consider when writing or creating an object of literature and that includes the citation and credit of any and all sources and references that you may have used. Many people do it on purpose and hope they won't get caught, however, some people do it without even realizing. For this log, I will enumerate the 10 different types of plagiarism on the Plagiarism Spectrum.

The first one is called Clone. It's pretty self-explanatory, a pretty common one I think. It is when the student or anyone for that matter submits someone else's work, word-for-word as their own. 

The second is called Ctrl + C.  It refers to when someone just straight up highlights a portion of someone else's work, copies it and pastes it into their work without altering anything, again claiming it as their own. 

The third one is called Find and Replace. While it is an actual feature of Ms Word, Google Docs and other word document programs, this particular type of plagiarism refers to when people make use of this feature by copy-pasting something into their work, but replacing certain connecting words or phrases to make it seem like it's different. It is one step more advanced than CTRL + C.

The fourth one is called Remix. It is when you paraphrase and mash multiple bits of information together from multiple sources without giving proper credit.

The 5th type of plagiarism is called Recycle. As its name suggests, to Recycle is to reuse your old work and pass it off as something new. Many people, including myself, did not realize this was illegal as we were under the assumption that since we're the authors anyway, it wouldn't matter. It's still very much plagiarism though.

The 6th type is called a Hybrid. It's quite similar to the 4th 7th type in the way that it collects bits of information from multiple sources. The difference is that in Hybrid Plagiarism, the writer combines perfectly cited sources with copied passages without citation, claiming those said passages as their own.

The 7th is called Mashup. It is most similar to Remix in that it also takes information from multiple sources without citation. The only difference is that while Remix at least paraphrases the passages, Mashup Plagiarism directly copy-pastes it into the work.

The 8th kind of plagiarism is called 404 Error. It is when a writer cites a source purely for the appearance of having a reference when in fact the link does not lead to anywhere at all. Thus, the 404 Error.

The 9th is called Aggregator. The actual term refers to either a person or organization that collects information from various sources and puts them in one place, usually a website. The Aggregator Plagiarism is when you do cite every source property, have have little to no original work in the paper. It's all just passages from other people's work.

The 10th and final type of plagiarism is called Re-Tweet. This one is a bit easy to miss. It is when you do cite a source, but the passage is so reliant on the original work's structure and wording, that it doesn't even count as paraphrasing.

Of course it would be rather ironic of me to write a blog about plagiarism without putting in my sources, so I will list them below.

References:

Ayton, K. (2016, December 6). Top Ten Most Popular Types of Plagiarism. Plagiarism Search. https://plagiarismsearch.com/blog/top-ten-most-popular-types-of-plagiarism

The Plagiarism Spectrum (n.d.). Turnitin. https://www.turnitin.com/static/plagiarism-spectrum/