Nov 26, 2011

14 Be Mindful of What you Do (innocent thievery)

Blessings …

Be mindful of what you do (thinking out loud on plagiarism). Do you realize that one can innocently steal? It sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? But it is the truth, bare with me a minute.

Example:

You come across a fantastic passage in a book, a poem, a quote and you are really inspired, so much so that you want to share it, pass it on multiplying all that feel good energy. So you type it up and pass it out, blog it etc., however, in your zest to share this stimulating new find, you've neglected to cite the book and the author. It was not done maliciously, you were simply sharing the inspiration and hoping to inspire someone the way you were inspired.

That my friend is stealing without knowing. I mean that act can be called absentmindedness, or designated an oversight or an unintentional fluke, even so it still won’t make it any less stealing. While ignorance can be deemed a good defense, it is a poor defense. The truth is ignorance does not make one innocent of the act, it simply makes one ignorant to the facts. Let's face it ignorance is only bliss when the penalty is not stiff, and the consequences does not involve incarceration, or some other traumatically life altering thing hence allowing one the opportunity to correct the error in judgment ultimately changing the way one do things from that day forth.

 

“We”, yes I say we as I including myself, have to be mindful about how we do things and consider the implications and impact to ourselves and others (if we can) and from time to time (if we are wise) ask ourselves some tough questions (in this case as it pertains to plagiarism).

QUESTIONS LIKE:

Have I innocently used others written work without their permission?

Literary thievery

Did I fail to quote?

Unauthorized use

Have I blogged and failed to cite and refer to?

Content scraping

Have I used excerpts from books and fail to mention the book?

Taking credit

WHAT AM I SAYING....?

If you write cite.

If you copy cite

If you blog cite, refer to and...

Acknowledge

To plagiarize is to steal, to thieve, to take that which is not yours and use it and present it as your own without the explicit consent or permission from the creator.

14 comments:

  1. Thank you. Forever vigilant I must be!

    Peace & Love

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  2. Thank you my friend. I also try to do this but I will be ever so careful in the future.
    I hope you are having a great weekend.

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  3. Good Saturday Fab…
    Can you take back that cold north wind from the north?
    It is chilly down here today…Brrr!!!
    Even lit a candle on my desk to look at its warmth.
    Be well and safe travels…Greg

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  4. THIS IS A GREAT POST!!! I do think about it all the time and it makes me very wary of using anyone’s ‘anything’ (writing) without citing, referring to, linking to and whatever else I can to acknowledge that some one other than myself first wrote it. It even causes me to ‘ponder’ (questioningly) is it okay to link without prior permission. Really does make you go uuummmmm……..

    Have a good and restful Sunday. See you again soon.

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  5. Certainly something to say hmmm about. I know and hear what yuh sayin’!

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  6. Fabz,

    Gosh, how many times have I sermonized about plagiarizing to my students? If I had a dollar for every time, I could RETIRE!…Wait, I have retired…Hmmm (haha)

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  7. I agree with you – so many seem to think that their feeling that another has said what they believe better than they could themselves somehow absolves them of guilt in this respect. The fact is that it is usually far more interesting to hear from someone what he or she thinks in his or her own words than it is to read the regurgitated words of someone else. Plagiarized writing is as boring in most cases as those horrible ‘beautiful thoughts’ that are forwarded endlessly around the net. If you can’t speak your own words, whyshould anyone listen at all – we might better spend our time getting to know the person who wrote the original.

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  8. A good warning.We often fail to indicate the source.Mere inverted commas will not do.One must specify the name of author and if not known,say source unknown.Ignorance of this minimum requirement is no excuse. Thank you Rhapsody.

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  9. I used most of time from the news paper or the Magazines because my poor grammar it doesn't help
    my post.
    Have a great day!

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  10. You're absolutely right and this is a good reminder for all bloggers.

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  11. This is so true and I agree with all of the good comments made. As long as I've been blogging and writing I know I've been guilty of doing this in the past, not on purpose of course. But I did it just the same. Just the other day I posted a blog where I had forgotten to put a link in so I pulled and reposted it. Now that I'm getting older (and a little more forgetful) I have a method where after I post my blog online I go on my site and proof read it one more time. There's how I caught this last mistake and any others. It works for me so I make it a habit with every post. I actually like to leave a link if I'm blogging about someone elses thoughts or words to their site so if my readers want to know more about the subject they can go and read more about it. Great blog, written with style like all of your posts. I really enjoy coming here and as you put it; "Get my read on." Luv to you and have a nice weekend! ♥

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  12. Thank you for this post. So true!

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  13. Great post Fab! I try always to quote my source.

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  14. I'm guilty of posting inspiring quotes as my Facebook status without citing the "authors".

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