The different between originality and plagiarism - Essay Example

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM Institute Difference between Originality and Plagiarism Plagiarism is an act of academic duplicity which is considered to be a major offense by the educational institutions. It is a punishable act which is mainly defined as utilizing the information provided by some other writer and giving it your own name and not providing recognition to the original writer for his work. Thus it is the stealing of the ideas and thoughts of another individual without providing the identification of the work to belong to its true writer.

According to the Birmingham University in England, plagiarism may be considered to be serious in the case of, “sustained or repeated lifting of text (verbatim) from a source or sources not correctly attributed.” Thus it is mainly an act of discrediting of the original author from his work and may be considered to be an act of stealing (Sutherland-Smith 2008). Originality on the other hand is a different concept and it is not a wrong act as is plagiarism. It is basically the assembling of ideas and writings by an author that were already available and presented by other writers with the viewpoint of the current author.

The author gives a new shape and meaning to the other thoughts and philosophies and does not basically steal the ideas of others. It is an original piece of work where the author can be credited for the writing as he only takes the understanding from previous readings but amends and writes them according to his own concept and viewpoint. According to Knoop, “Originality is defined as the identification, development, and combination of pre-existing structures and elements, mostly from literature, but also from other fields, such as philosophy, politics, or science.

”(Knoop 2011). Thus, plagiarism is an act of copying the works of sources without acknowledging the true writers of the author. On the other hand, originality is different from plagiarism and is an original piece of work where an author uses different ideas and presents his own work by giving a new shape to those ideas. Bibliography Top of Form KNOOP, CHRISTINE ANGELA. (2011). Kundera and the Ambiguity of Authorship. Maney Pub. Bottom of Form Top of Form SUTHERLAND-SMITH, W. (2008). Plagiarism, the Internet, and student learning: improving academic integrity.

New York, Routledge. Bottom of Form