Plagiarism 102

The issue of plagiarism is not as simple as teachers would like their students to believe.

There is plagiarism, and there is plagiarism.

There is the kind of plagiarism that is anathema. Plagiarists of the first kind are set up as examples of how not to write research papers, ostracized by the academic community, ridiculed by peers, refused tenure or awards, demonized by history.

On the other hand, there is the kind of plagiarism that is canonized. Plagiarists of the second kind are set up as examples of how to write literary masterpieces, lionized by the academic community, envied by peers, tenured and awarded, immortalized by history.

Corresponding to these two kinds of plagiarism are two schools of thought about plagiarism.

There is the simplistic view of plagiarism. This is the view that teachers force upon students, other teachers, and the community at large. This is a view shared by almost everyone, including all of the lawyers and professors that have condemned the recent Supreme Court decision. Let us call this view the Absolute Theory of Plagiarism.

On the other hand, there is the complex view of plagiarism. This is the view that many young writers and some old critics in the international literary community today espouse. Let us call this view the Relative Theory of Plagiarism.

The Absolute Theory is really simple and strict. Plagiarism, as defined by Plagiarism.org, is “the use of another’s original words or ideas as though they were your own.” In this theory, plagiarism is a lie, a crime, a sin, because it is a form of stealing. One should not steal someone else’s words and ideas, because words and ideas are intellectual property, owned by whoever first said or wrote them down.

In the Absolute Theory, you are not allowed to copy the idea, even if the words are all different, of an author (whether alive or dead) without naming the author. (Copyright violation is less strict, because it involves only authors still alive or who died less than 70 years ago.) To avoid the charge of plagiarism, all you have to do is to attribute, footnote, endnote, cite, link, or otherwise make it clear that what you are saying or writing are not your own words or ideas.

Suppose you were a student and you wrote this sentence without referring to Shakespeare: The typical Filipino does not know whether to be or not to be.

A strict teacher would tell you to put quotation marks on the phrase that you borrowed from Shakespeare’s “To be, or not to be: that is the question.” The teacher would be happy if you wrote the sentence this way: The typical Filipino does not know whether “to be or not to be.”

A stricter teacher would insist that you put a citation even if you already used quotation marks. Your sentence would then be something like this: The typical Filipino does not know whether ‘to be or not to be” (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1).

The strict and the stricter teacher may forgive you for writing the following sentence, but not the strictest teacher: The typical Filipino does not know whether to follow his conscience or to accept or give bribes like everyone else in government and business.

It is the idea, not the words, that should not be borrowed, the strictest teacher would say. The idea is exactly the same as Shakespeare’s, although the words are different. You should then, the strictest teacher would say, mention that Shakespeare thought of the idea before you did. Your sentence would then read: As Shakespeare anticipated in Hamlet, the typical Filipino does not know whether to follow his conscience or to accept or give bribes like everyone else in government and business.

In the Absolute Theory, intention has nothing to do with plagiarism. By not mentioning Shakespeare and Hamlet, you have committed plagiarism, whether you intended to steal the idea of Shakespeare or not, whether you read Hamlet, whether you even realized that what you were expressing was not original but an idea long attributed to the greatest playwright the world has ever known, whether you were so naïve or so egoistic that you actually thought that you could fashion an original thought never expressed by one or more of the millions of thinkers and writers that lived before you were born.

It is irrelevant if you innocently or maliciously intended to pass off as your own thought somebody else’s thought. The only thing relevant is that your sentence itself is a copy, albeit couched in another way, of somebody else’s idea.

I must admit that, in my early days as a teacher and writer, I used to adhere to the Absolute Theory. I would repeat the mantra of teachers of term paper writing, namely, “Footnote! Footnote! Footnote!” Sometime in my 40 years of teaching and writing, however, I started to tinker with the thought that the Relative Theory of Plagiarism might not be as silly as it seems and might even have its merits. The reason has to do with the digital revolution, more particularly, Web 2.0.

(To be continued when school resumes)