Concurrently Chaotic

I was checking the reports submitted to me a few days ago. One of the reports looked pretty much professional and eloquent. So I decided to pick a sentence and put the sentence as is to Google. Then I discovered most of the contents were copied, or plagiarized, from the same Web page of a professional article. No wonder it looked professional.

I'm always telling other people that you need to describe the source of the quotations when you put them into your contents. I am pro-share, pro-remix, and pro-reuse person, and I support Creative Commons. I've never been against quotations, provided that proper and legal indication of the sources are given.

But I didn't see the source in the report. So I had to give very low evaluation to it.

Lessons:

• Your reviewer will put your documents in Google and other search engines. Plagiarism is that common, unfortunately.
• Show the sources when you quote something. Unauthorized quotations are liabilities.
• Know your legal rights and duties on quotations, and do not abuse them.

posted at: 30 Jul 2009 | path: /writing | permanent link