Plagiarism-1

In this post and the subsequent series of posts that are going to follow this, I will discuss what this word "Plagiarism" mean and what threat does it pose for the one who creates and the one who takes. As a designer and a honest person I thought it would be nice to take a note of this.

I confess that even I have done it many a times. But not after an instance when my professor pointed to graphical icons (they were small to represent sections) in my portfolio work and asked me whether I made it. Though my answer was no, he said that I had not done the right thing. I should have atleast acknowledged the creator. And that was an eye opener for me. Today it's me who's taking the portion of work of the original creator and publishing under my authorship, tommorow it can be some body else doing same with my (original) work.
I am not at sounding sarcastic or arrogant when I say "my" work nor am I being selfish.

Ok so here goes the first session with meanings of "plagiarism" from around the web.

Wikipedia says it thus
"
Plagiarism is the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement. Unlike cases of forgery, in which the authenticity of the writing, document, or some other kind of object itself is in question, plagiarism is concerned with the issue of false attribution.
"
And it goes on by classifying plagiarism as

• Academia
• Journalism
• Online plagiarism
• Other contexts
• Self-plagiarism

Now there is something called self plagiarism too, in which you reuse your published creation again and again without attributing to the original work and calling each a new creation. Now that's not fair too even if it's your own work.

Dictionary.com says thus
"

• the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.
• something used and represented in this manner

"

Now without being plagiarist myself I would thank Wikipedia and Dictionary.com for providing such a nice resource.

And you know what, am thinking of doing some creative assignment on the same topic.
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