[attrition] New Errata Page - Security Industry Plagiarism

[security curmudgeon]

http://attrition.org/errata/plagiarism.html

Security Industry Plagiarism

According to dictionary.com, "Plagiarism" is "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." This appears to be a 
simple explanation of the act of plagiarizing, but it is not. According to 
the U.S. Copyright Office, "there is no specific number of words, lines, 
or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the 
source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining 
permission." Title 17 > Chapter 1 > § 107 of the U.S. Code covers 
Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use but does not outline a specific 
amount of text or occurrences that define plagiarism.

Despite the law not giving a clear line between fair use and plagiarism, 
most professionals understand the nature of the law and adhere to a level 
of moral behavior that avoids plagiarism. By quoting small portions of 
text, properly citing the original source and ensuring their work is done 
in good faith, it is generally easy to avoid plagiarizing. The NYU 
Journalism Handbook for Students contains a section on Research Materials 
& Copyright that gives a good list of real world examples of what 
constitutes plagiarism. Plagiarism.org offers a summary answer to the 
question What is Plagiarism? The law offices of Morse Barnes-Brown 
Pendleton published an article in Writer's Digest in 2001 explaining A 
Writers' Guide to Fair Use. These resources should give a good guideline 
of what is acceptable, and what is not.

Attrition.org uses the resources above to guide us in determining if a 
piece of work contains plagiarized material. The types of plagiarism as 
outlined by Plagiarism.org serve as a starting point. Instances where a 
sentence or two are copied every so often are lazy, but not necessarily 
plagiarism. We consider the amount of copied text versus the amount of 
original work and weigh it against the expectation of original work. When 
we find material that has a significant percentage of copied material, or 
demonstrates signs that the author did not present original material 
(e.g., building large blocks of text by copying single lines from multiple 
sources), we consider it to be plagiarized.

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