Defining Plagiarism, How to Avoid It

Defining Plagiarism, How to Avoid It

定义抄袭，如何避免抄袭

【听力音频】

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　　By Andrew Smith, Jill Robbins, and Dan Novak

　　23 January 2024

　　It has become easy for students to find and copy published material. But copying another person's writing without giving them credit can get students and other scholars into big trouble. Copying another person's writing without crediting them is called plagiarism.

　　Recently, the leader of Harvard University stepped down over problems related to the use of other peoples' work in her writing.

　　American copyright law protects original works of authorship including books, movies, music, images and artworks. The protection extends to computer software and the design of buildings and structures.

　　The owner can sell a copyright or permit others to use it because it is property and property ownership is protected by law in the U.S.

　　The idea is that copyright helps society. If people can gain from their own creations, called their intellectual property, then more people will want to create original works.

　　The law, however, permits the unlicensed use of copyrighted works under what is called fair use. Fair use can include criticism, comment, news reporting, education and research. However, there are some limitations.

　　In education, students can include small parts of copyrighted work in their writing and research. But they must provide credit to the original creators through a citation which gives details about the source.

　　Many universities, including Harvard University, even urge students to give credit to sources of ideas when they come from discussions with professors or other students. Harvard even warns students about copying themselves. That is, they cannot hand in the same work for more than one class without the permission of their instructors.

　　A failure to do so is considered plagiarizing.

　　How can professors know if a student is plagiarizing?

　　Just as it is easy to copy, it is also easy for professors to know if a student has plagiarized.

　　First, there are computer programs and artificial intelligence, or AI, tools that compare students' papers to large databases of published writing. The programs can identify whether students have copied published writing. Second, if English is not a student's first language, a professor might recognize a change in wording and writing style. This could bring more attention to the student's paper.

　　Plagiarism is punished in different ways. Professors could simply warn a student not to do it again, lower their grade, or they might fail the student in that class. In more extreme cases, a student may be temporarily banned or expelled from school.

　　Tools to avoid plagiarism

　　There are free tools to make citations easier for students and to avoid plagiarism. Zotero is a free, open-source program that helps organize all the research a student may use. For example, it can automatically create citations and combine them into a list. The Purdue Online Writing Lab, or Purdue OWL for short, is another free resource.

　　Many universities also have writing centers where students can learn the citation rules. And another way for students to learn how to avoid plagiarism is to read published papers and pay careful attention to how information is presented. Students should observe when and how citations are used. This can help them learn the rules of citations.

　　In educational, or academic, writing, it is better to cite too much than too little.

　　A possible double standard

　　Harvard's Claudine Gay resigned this month after several accusations of plagiarism in her academic work.

　　Gay's academic writing got attention after she was strongly criticized for her answers to a Congressional committee related to freedom of speech. Critics found several cases of possible plagiarism in her 1997 doctoral paper. Harvard's governing board first supported Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up "a few instances of inadequate citation" but no evidence of research wrongdoing.

　　There has been debate among academics over whether her conduct amounted to academic dishonesty. D. Stephen Voss is an associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. He knew Gay when they were graduate students at Harvard. A paper he co-wrote in the 1990s was one Gay is accused of plagiarizing from.

　　He said in an interview with the New Yorker magazine that Gay did plagiarize from him. But what she copied from his paper was "trivial" and "inconsequential."

　　What Gay used from his paper "did not take an idea of any significance from my work." He added: "the bit she used from us was not in any way a major component of what made her research important or valuable."

　　Roger Kreuz is a psychology professor at the University of Memphis who is writing a book on the history and psychology of plagiarism. He told VOA in an email that if plagiarism is defined as taking words from another person's work, "the opinion of (Voss) doesn't really matter."

　　Kreuz wrote in the online publication, The Conversation, that university students and professors might face different requirements when it comes to plagiarism. Kreuz wrote that professors suspected of plagiarism may be given the benefit of the doubt by their schools. They may also be given the chance to make corrections to their published work.

　　Kreuz added that university leaders think that faculty members know what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. If a problem arises, administrators might think they were just being careless with their citations or use of quotation marks.

　　Students, on the other hand, must follow university policies on academic behavior. Harvard, for example, warns that students may be forced to leave the college if they plagiarize. Work written by students is more likely to be closely examined and put through tools that identify plagiarism than faculty work.

　　Many students consider this a double standard.

　　Kreuz wrote in an opinion piece in The Boston Globe that university plagiarism policies for faculty are unclear.

　　How "can academics set or enforce policies for faculty when the concept is so ill-defined?" he asked.

　　I'm Dan Novak. And I'm Gena Bennett.

　　Andrew Smith, Jill Robbins, and Dan Novak wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Additional information came from Robert Kreuz's article in The Conversation and reporting from The Associated Press.

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　　作者：Andrew Smith，Jill Robbins和Dan Novak

　　2024年1月23日

　　对于学生来说，找到并复制已发布的材料变得很容易。但是，如果在未给予他们信誉的情况下复制他人的写作，可能会让学生和其他学者陷入大麻烦。未经他人许可就复制他人的写作被称为抄袭。

　　最近，哈佛大学的领导因为在她的写作中使用他人作品的问题而辞职。

　　美国版权法保护原创作品，包括书籍、电影、音乐、图像和艺术作品。这种保护也扩展到计算机软件以及建筑和结构的设计。

　　版权所有者可以出售版权，或允许他人使用，因为它是财产，而在美国，财产所有权受到法律保护。

　　版权的理念是，它有助于社会发展。如果人们可以从自己的创作（被称为他们的知识产权）中获益，那么就会有更多的人愿意创作原创作品。

　　然而，法律允许在所谓的"合理使用"下，无需许可就可以使用受版权保护的作品。合理使用可以包括批评、评论、新闻报道、教育和研究。但是，这也有一些限制。

　　在教育中，学生可以在他们的写作和研究中引用受版权保护的作品的小部分。但是，他们必须通过引用来给予原创者信誉，引用需要提供关于来源的详细信息。

　　许多大学，包括哈佛大学，甚至敦促学生在他们的想法来自与教授或其他学生的讨论时，给予来源信誉。哈佛甚至警告学生不要抄袭自己。也就是说，他们不能在未经教师许可的情况下，将同一份作业提交给多个课程。

　　如果不这样做，就被视为抄袭。

　　教授如何知道学生是否在抄袭？

　　就像复制很容易一样，教授也很容易知道学生是否在抄袭。

　　首先，有计算机程序和人工智能（AI）工具可以将学生的论文与大量已发布的写作进行比较。这些程序可以识别出学生是否抄袭了已发布的写作。其次，如果英语不是学生的母语，教授可能会注意到措辞和写作风格的变化。这可能会使学生的论文受到更多的关注。

　　对抄袭的惩罚有多种方式。教授可能只是简单地警告学生不要再这样做，降低他们的成绩，或者他们可能会让学生在那门课上不及格。在更极端的情况下，学生可能会被暂时禁止或开除学籍。

　　避免抄袭的工具

　　有一些免费的工具可以帮助学生更容易地进行引用，避免抄袭。Zotero是一个免费的开源程序，可以帮助整理学生可能使用的所有研究资料。例如，它可以自动创建引用并将它们组合成一个列表。普渡在线写作实验室（简称Purdue OWL）是另一个免费的资源。

　　许多大学也有写作中心，学生可以在那里学习引用规则。另一种学生学习如何避免抄袭的方法是阅读已发布的论文，并仔细注意信息是如何呈现的。学生应该观察引用何时以及如何使用。这可以帮助他们学习引用规则。

　　在教育或学术写作中，过度引用总比引用不足要好。

　　可能的双重标准

　　哈佛大学的克劳迪娜·盖伊（Claudine Gay）在本月因其学术作品中的多次抄袭指控而辞职。

　　盖伊的学术写作在她因对国会委员会关于言论自由的回答受到强烈批评后引起了关注。批评者在她1997年的博士论文中发现了几个可能的抄袭案例。哈佛的管理委员会首先支持盖伊，称对她的学术工作的审查发现了“一些不充分的引用”，但没有发现研究不当的证据。

　　学术界一直在争论她的行为是否构成学术不诚实。D. Stephen Voss是肯塔基大学的政治科学副教授。他在哈佛大学研究生时期就认识盖伊。他在90年代合著的一篇论文就是盖伊被指控抄袭的论文之一。

　　他在接受《纽约客》杂志采访时表示，盖伊确实从他那里抄袭了。但她从他的论文中抄袭的内容是"微不足道"和"无关紧要"的。

　　盖伊从他的论文中使用的内容"并没有从我的工作中取走任何重要的想法。"他补充说："她从我们这里使用的那部分内容，对她的研究的重要性或价值来说，都不是一个主要的组成部分。"

　　罗杰·克鲁兹是孟菲斯大学的心理学教授，他正在写一本关于抄袭历史和心理学的书。他在给美国之音的一封电子邮件中说，如果抄袭被定义为从他人的作品中取词，"（沃斯的）观点并不真正重要。"

　　克鲁兹在在线出版物《对话》中写道，大学生和教授在抄袭问题上可能面临不同的要求。克鲁兹写道，被怀疑抄袭的教授可能会得到学校的疑虑的好处。他们也可能有机会对已经发表的作品进行更正。

　　克鲁兹补充说，大学领导认为教职员工知道什么是抄袭以及如何避免抄袭。如果出现问题，管理者可能会认为他们只是在引用或使用引号时不小心。

　　另一方面，学生必须遵守大学关于学术行为的政策。例如，哈佛大学警告说，如果学生抄袭，他们可能会被迫离开学院。学生的作品更有可能被仔细审查，并通过识别抄袭的工具进行检查，而教职员工的作品则不然。

　　许多学生认为这是一种双重标准。

　　克鲁兹在《波士顿环球报》的一篇观点文章中写道，大学对教职员工的抄袭政策不清晰。

　　他问道：“当这个概念如此模糊不清时，学者们如何制定或执行教职员工的政策呢？”

　　我是Dan Novak。我是Gena Bennett。

　　Andrew Smith、Jill Robbins和Dan Novak为VOA学英语写了这篇报道。额外的信息来自Robert Kreuz在《对话》中的文章和美联社的报道。

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　　本故事中的词汇

　　original — adj. 创新的，原创的

　　author — n. 作者，创始人

　　citation — n. 引用，引文

　　style — n. 风格，方式

　　grade — n. 成绩，等级

　　academic — adj. 学术的，教育的

　　trivial — adj. 不重要的，琐碎的

　　inconsequential — adj. 不重要的，无关紧要的

　　significant — adj. 重要的，有意义的

　　benefit of the doubt — idiom. 给予信任的余地

　　faculty — n. 教职员工，教员

　　double standard — idiom. 双重标准