How would people know if something was plagiarized?

  • Thread starter Thread starter chocodelight
  • Start date Start date
C

chocodelight

Guest
I mean, what if I wrote something (of course without copying from someone else's work), and then someone tells me I'm plagiarizing from another work? What if it's only coincidence?
 
They have software ( teachers and professors, i mean) that allows them to enter writing into a database, and it will hi-light if certain sentences are word for word copying. Plus, there's just plain googling a sentence.
 
Usually teachers know because it doesn't sound like you. I've never been accused of plagiarizing and yes it is quite possible I've said something that somebody else said before.
 
Generally speaking, if you're plagiarizing something, it will be obviously plagiarized. If you write and entire paragraph entirely word-for-word the same as another author, it didn't happen by chance. The statistical likelihood of such an event is exceedingly low.

If the basic points of your paragraph is the same, that isn't plagiarism. If the information is obvious enough for that to happen, it's not plagiarism.

Plagiarism is taking someone else's work as your own - in an academic paper, you are allowed to restate someone else's work! You only need to give credit to them. In creative papers, if your paper is exactly the same as another person's paper, well, you aren't being especially creative.

So it's very difficult (if not impossible) to "accidentally" plagiarize work.
 
Back
Top