First off, let's define plagiarism:
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means
1. to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
2. to use (another's production) without crediting the source
3. to commit literary theft
4. to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.
But can words and ideas really be stolen?
According to U.S. law, the answer is yes. The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file).
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
* turning in someone else's work as your own
* copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
* failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
* giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
* changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit * copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)
http://www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/what_is_plagiarism.html
If I change the words, do I still have to cite the source?
Changing only the words of an original source is NOT sufficient to prevent plagiarism. You must cite a source whenever you borrow ideas as well as words.
http://www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/plagiarism_faq.html
So anyway, I just got this comment from my post re: my Mantigue Island/Camiguin trip last year. The anonymous poster asked if this was my multiply account. When I checked the link he/she gave, I realized why he/she thought it was my multiply. I read familiar words! The pathetic literary-retard/plagiarist blogger has copied virtually everything from my post! The nerve!
Click on the photos to see what Lala the Blog Plagiarist posted on her site... I screencapped it just in case she restricts viewing rights/deletes her multiply post in this URL:
http://twinklelala.multiply.com/photos/album/118/Mantigue_Island_CamiguinAnd here are the screencaps of my blog post last year which she undeniably plagiarized:
http://lilacstardust.blogspot.com/2007/07/island-hopping-in-camiguin.html#comments
Why in the world would she plagiarize my post?
a) she is too much of a dimwit to put her own experiences into words
b) she graduated from plagiarism university and majored in copy-pasting
c) she super-flunked all her English and Literature classes so she doesn't know how to construct words into this simple intelligible body of work called "blog"
d) she thought it was a one in a million probability that I would find out that she ripped off my blog post
e) she is a massive disgrace to the blogosphere and she is too much of a dunce to actually know that
f) she is royally constipated coz her subject and verb disagreed with her.
Feel free to add more reasons.