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On Plagiarism

by Editing ProtocolJune 19th, 2023

Too Long; Didn't Read

This should be common sense; taking thoughts, ideas, or words and presenting them as your own is wrong. Some prominent examples of abhorrent blogging behavior: Copy-pasting text into your story without attribution is plagiarism Paraphrasing someone else’s words into your story without attribution is plagiarism Copying someone’s story structure without attribution is plagiarism (and lazy) Copying someone’s code with attribution is plagiarism Nothing new to add here. Stealing is stealing, and it doesn’t matter what excuses you have. “Accidentally” copying someone’s text and forgetting to add your source is still plagiarism. Writers have a duty to edit their stories and this is your responsibility. In universities, you’d be expelled for plagiarism. In the real world, you would be sued. At HackerNoon, you will be banned. Needless to say (but incredibly it’s come up in the past), if your story has been verified to have plagiarized other work, even ‘accidentally’, we will not accept that piece for resubmission even after you make changes.

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‘Generate an image featuring two documents side by side on a table. The first document should have black ink on white paper, and the second document should be an identical replica but with red ink on white paper.’ Image created by HackerNoon AI Image Generator

This should be common sense; taking thoughts, ideas, or words and presenting them as your own is wrong.

Some prominent examples of abhorrent blogging behavior:

Copy-pasting text into your story without attribution is plagiarism
Paraphrasing someone else’s words into your story without attribution is plagiarism
Copying someone’s story structure without attribution is plagiarism (and lazy)
Copying someone’s code with attribution is plagiarism

Nothing new to add here. Stealing is stealing, and it doesn’t matter what excuses you have.

Examples

Here is text from a real story someone submitted to HackerNoon:

Here is where the fake writer stole it from:

The writer copy-pasted text, and changed one or two words, not citing CNBC at all.

In case you were wondering: yes, this is plagiarism. Changing one word does not make you the writer of this text.

No Such Thing As “Accidental” Plagiarism

“Accidentally” copying someone’s text and forgetting to add your source is still plagiarism, even if you didn’t mean to do it.

Writers have a duty to edit their stories and this is your responsibility.

In universities, you’d be expelled for plagiarism.

In the real world, you would be sued.

At HackerNoon, you will be banned.

Needless to say (but incredibly it’s come up in the past), if your story has been verified to have plagiarized other work, even ‘accidentally’, we will not accept that piece for resubmission even after you make changes.