Yes, I get that that is the way some purists treat plagiarism, but does that really make any sense wrt to the topic at hand? Can anyone really live up to that standard? Do most people have the means to hold other to that standard? Is it really practical to expect articles, which largely report matters of fact, to avoid rephrasing things originally reported by others? Even the idea to report on something, the notion that it is newsworthy, is something that is taken from the original reporter.
You’re accepting as a predicate that is it always possible or reasonable to credit other people’s “ideas”. As if every idea belongs to someone. I’m sure my perspectives on things are influenced by all sorts of things; some of I know of, and others I have forgotten. Must all these people be credited anytime I employ logic or verbiage I have gleaned from them?
The main issue I find troubling is that people insist on treating plagiarism, or, more broadly, the theft of intellectual property, as the ultimate ethical breach rather that an issue that must balance utility and practicality, while ensuring people are rewarded and celebrated for their work. Of course you don’t want to live in a world where people can just take your IP without any consequences, but we have gone too far in the other direction IMO.
Am I misinterpreting you here? Surely, the strictest academic sources do go far enough to say “Merely taking an essay you’ve found and rewording it is still plagiarism”, as well they should.
I’m not seeing any sort of generational shift here. The dude plagiarized, he got caught, and as a result, he’s leaving his editorial position. That part of the story could have been told any time since the invention of the printing press. The only thing new here is that he’s trying to blame his actions on modern technology, but I don’t think anyone who matters is actually taking that excuse seriously. It’s just “The dog ate my citations to sources”, except the dog is replaced by the Internet.
I should clarify that the vast majority of students caught plagiarizing, in my own experience, are international students whose grasp of English is too poor for them to keep up with the classes they manage to slip into (there are loopholes in the system that let this happen, but you’d think they’d realize early on that they’re in over their heads).
They start failing when they write on their own because their skills are atrociously lacking. Then they start swiping things off the Internet–I’m talking entire articles written by someone else–and turning them in with their names at the top.
A few of them will apologize for this and they always admit that they knew they were doing something wrong, that they’re sorry and will never do it again, etc.
What gets me is that they would have known that from the first week of classes. Handouts, discussions, writing on the board, warnings, etc…It’s not as if they never knew that it was wrong and that it’s easily caught in most cases.