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WHAT IS PLAGIARISM?

Plagiarism might seem a little complex with respect to the "word" but it is something we sometimes do daily with or without knowing. This post we're going to see into what plagiarism is as much as we can. Let's start out by checking out what wikipedia says or how it defines the word plagiarism.

from wikipedia,
"Plagiarism is the representation of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work."
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Let's get another definition from another source this time from the oxford dictionary

from oxford dictionary;
"The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft."
^source.

We get here that the two definitions above say the same thing they're just basically paraphrased. Plagiarism in a layman's understanding or simplest form is the act of copying and pasting someone's work as if it's yours. This might seem a little bit weird like why will someone want to do that? well let's take some sample scenarios of plagiarism which can also be commonly called "copy work".

case 1;

Imagine you going through a friends post or article on social media or maybe a friends status and find something very interesting you love and instead of sharing on your friends timeline, you copy the post or status and paste as your new post or status. That sounds like its quite fair an alright but that's plagiarism making someone's post seem like it's yours meanwhile its not.

case 2;

Let's take a case of you going through the internet and find an interesting photo you would probably like to us and instead of using the image's address with the copyright or watermark, you take the image and crop out the watermark or maybe edit the image and replace the watermark with yours.

IS PLAGIARISM GOOD OR EVIL?

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The two examples above are cases we interact with daily as we navigate through the internet sometimes without even knowing that's what we're doing. Plagiarism which can be considered offensive is also encouraged or supported in some fields or areas.
What i meant is plagiarism can be harmful or good depending first on where you find yourself (the ecosystem, environment in which you find yourself) because where area, every group or set of people have a set of rules and regulations (etiquettes) that govern their being together. Let's take a common example for better understanding:
Coming from the field of IT (technology), plagiarism is supported up to like 90% which means copying someone's work and making yours out of it is considered not to be a crime whereas there are cases where it is widely prohibited like in private projects while plagiarism is widely allowed an encouraged in open source projects.
Another scenario we can relate to is coming to human background like your area of residence or origin. There are arears where plagiarism can lead to imprisonment and considered a crime whereas there are areas or nations where it is rather regarded as prestige having someone plagiarize your work.
You can read more on legal and illegal plagiarism cases here.

WHEN TO AND WHEN NOT TO PLAGIARIZE?

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Knowing when and when not to plagiarize is very important in maintaining your dignity online. Let's list some points to look into before thinking of plagiarism:

1. Know you location(your residence).
   Not all areas will permit plagiarism having and understand of your location, its beliefs will help you know if plagiarism is allowed or forbidden.
2. Learn the rules first.
   The first most important step to take is to learn the rules that govern the environment or platform. The rules will help you know if you are allowed to do so or not.

With this post i hope it helps someone get a better understanding and a broader view of plagiarism.

"I have read and understood the Steemit Etiquette on Steemit Community and will do my best to embrace them".