Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing

Copyright law (see Wikipedia:Copyrights) forbids Wikipedia contributors from copying information directly from other sources except in limited cases and with attribution. Close paraphrasing unsuccessfully attempts to circumvent these restrictions by copying and superficially modifying information from another source.

However, Wikipedia's original research policy requires that a source's statements be accurately conveyed. Thus the meaning conveyed by the article must follow the source's meaning. Language should be selected with care to avoid unacceptably changing the meaning. Using brief quotes, as permitted by non-free content policy, around key words or phrases is one way to help avoid this issue.

Example

Consider the following source material, and pretend that it's taken from a non-free copyrighted source (actually, it's from a revision of Cat):

The cat (Felis catus), also known as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from other felines and felids, is a small predatory carnivorous species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes and scorpions. It has been associated with humans for at least 9,500 years.

If this text were copied wholesale, it would be easy to detect; so our clever contributor gets out their thesaurus and changes things around a bit:

The domestic cat or house cat, scientific name Felis catus, is a small predatory meat-eating species of crepuscular mammal. Cats are valued by humans for their ability to catch scorpions, snakes, and mice and their domestic companionship. Humans and cats have been associated for at least 9,500 years.

On the surface this may look different, but it is not sufficiently distinguished from the original; many phrases have been copied, the basic sentence structure, vocabulary, and tone has been retained, and the same facts are presented in roughly the same order.

The right way to use this source would be to read it, read other sources about cats, internalize the information, and then write original content without looking at the structure of the sources:

The cat (Felis catus) is a domestic pet kept by humans. Cats are small hunting predators that are mainly active during the twilight hours. They hunt a variety of prey including snakes, insects, and small rodents. The earliest known cat lived over 9,500 years ago and was found on the island of Cyprus. Sometimes cats are called domestic cats to avoid confusion with other felines like lions and tigers.

The sources should also, of course, be cited.

When is it a problem?

Educational institutions are primarily concerned with close paraphrasing from an ethical perspective: using another's words as one's own is considered plagiarism, and a student that closely paraphrases sources isn't understanding the source and learning.

Wikipedia's primary concern is with the legal constraints imposed by copyright law; in many cases close paraphrasing of a non-free copyrighted source is likely to be an infringement of the copyright of the source. For example, in Macmillan Co. v. King (1914), a U.S. District Court found that an economic professor's notes, condensed and closely paraphrased from the textbook, constituted infringement. Close paraphrasing rises to the level of copyright infringement when taking is substantial. Depending on the context and extent of the paraphrasing, limited close paraphrase may be permitted under the doctrine of fair use; close paraphrase of a single sentence is not as much of a concern as an entire section or article. This concern rises when the source is not verifiably public domain.

However, where content is verifiably public domain or released under copyleft, close paraphrasing may be at odds with Wikipedia's guideline related to plagiarism as well (see Wikipedia:Plagiarism). While in this context, too, close paraphrasing of a single sentence is not as much of a concern, if a contributor closely paraphrases public domain or copylefted content, he or she should explicitly acknowledge that content is closely paraphrased. (See below.)

Finally, close paraphrasing can also become problematic when a contributor closely paraphrases a source without understanding it; consequently, the contributor does not possess the ability to assess whether an article conforms to our policies, particularly Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, or to repair it if it does not. The result is frequently content that has a bias similar to the bias of the source.

When is close paraphrase permitted?

In some limited cases, close paraphrase may be an acceptable way of writing an article. For example, many Wikipedia articles are based originally on text from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (see Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica). If the source is public domain or available under a CC-By-SA-compatible free license, it may be closely paraphrased if it is fully attributed. (Alternatively, the contributor may choose to place a copy of it on Wikisource and link to it for reference purposes.) The procedure for properly attributing close paraphrasing of public domain or compatibly licensed content is the same as that of attributing copied public domain or compatibly licensed content. See specifically Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Sources under copyleft and Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Public-domain sources for the procedure.

If a non-free copyrighted source is being used, it is recommended to use original language and direct quotations, to clearly separate source material from original material; nevertheless, limited close paraphrasing may be acceptable under fair use in some cases.

It is also permitted when there are only a limited number of ways to say the same thing. In general, sentences like "Dr. John Smith earned his medical degree at State University" can be rephrased "John Smith earned his M.D. at State University" without copyright problems. Note, however, that closely paraphrasing extensively from a non-free source may be a copyright problem, even if it is difficult to find different means of expression. In Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, the United States Supreme Court noted that factual compilations of information may be protected with respect to "selection and arrangement, so long as they are made independently by the compiler and entail a minimal degree of creativity," as "[t]he compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers"; the Court also indicated that "originality is not a stringent standard; it does not require that facts be presented in an innovative or surprising way" and that "[t]he vast majority of works make the grade quite easily, as they possess some creative spark, 'no matter how crude, humble or obvious' it might be."[1]

When using a close paraphrase legitimately, citing a source is highly recommended, and in most cases, required.

Further information: Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright § Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else?

Detecting and dealing with close paraphrasing

Unlike straightforward copyright violations, close paraphrasing is notoriously difficult to detect; frequently the contributor will add wiki syntax and write in the style of a Wikipedia article. Here are some ways you might detect it:

• Look for disjointed and sudden changes in the tone, vocabulary, and style of content introduced by the same contributor. For example, "The cat is a small predatory carnivorous species of crepuscular mammal. Housecats like to kill mice and bats."
• Look for redundant content; this may be a sign that two or more sources were closely paraphrased. For example, "The cat is a small predatory carnivorous species of crepuscular mammal. Like many pets, domestic cats are carnivorous."
• Look for content that resembles content included in a quotation.
• Examine the talk pages of major contributors and other pages where they have written in their own words, and determine if their article contributions substantially differ in tone, structure, and vocabulary from these discussions.
• Take short phrases from the article and put them in a search engine. Take a look at the results and see if they closely resemble the article.

If you encounter an article or section using close paraphrasing, you can use the {{Close paraphrase}} template, which can be customized to identify the source and to indicate if the source is public domain, to mark it for cleanup:

However if you believe that the close paraphrasing in question is so close that it infringes copyright, instead follow the instructions at Template:Copyvio, which may require removing the paraphrasing content until it can be repaired. Unless close paraphrasing is immediately obvious, it is good practice to cite specific passages alongside the corresponding passage from the source on the talk page to highlight their similarity; this will provide objective evidence of close paraphrasing.

It is also important to discuss your concerns with the contributor. Many people who paraphrase too closely are not intentionally infringing, but just don't know how to properly paraphrase. It might help to point them to this essay or to the references and resources listed here, which include some pointers for proper paraphrasing.

Example approaches to discussing with other editors

Note: All text in these examples is dedicated by its authors to the public domain

Hi. I'm afraid the [[ArticleName]] article you wrote may be a copyright infringement of [source], since the text is very [[WP:close paraphrasing|closely paraphrased]]. While facts are not copyrightable, creative elements of presentation - including both structure and language - are. For an example of close paraphrasing, consider the following:
:*example from source
The article says:
:*example from article
There are other passages that similarly follow quite closely.

As the website is widely read and reused, Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, to ensure that we protect the interests of rightsholders as well as those of the Wikimedia Foundation and our reusers. Wikipedia's [[WP:C|copyright policies]] require that the content we take from non-free sources, aside from brief and clearly marked quotations, be rewritten from scratch.

The article has been replaced with a notice of these copyright concerns that includes directions for resolving them. If the material can be verified to be [[Wikipedia:Compatible license|compatibly licensed]] or [[Wikipedia:Public domain|public domain]] or if [[WP:IOWN|permission is provided]], we can use the original text with proper attribution. If you can resolve it that way, please let me know if you need assistance with those directions. Otherwise, so that we can be sure it does not constitute a derivative work, this article should be rewritten; there is a space provided for rewriting it linked from the directions on the article's front. The essay [[Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing]] contains some suggestions for rewriting that may help avoid these issues. The article [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches]], while about plagiarism rather than copyright concerns, also contains some suggestions for reusing material from sources that may be helpful, beginning under "Avoiding plagiarism".

Please let me know if you have questions about this.

• This example can be copied and pasted directly from the page, although you will need to fill in your own examples as well as supplying the article's title and the source url. It was engineered for cases when the paraphrasing is close enough to require blanking of the article and listing at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. It would not be appropriate for situations where {{close paraphrasing}} is used, since rewriting can be done on the spot rather than in a temporary page. The example strives to avoid accusations while at the same time pointing to clear instructions on how to fix errors of this sort. Examples of close paraphrasing are frequently very beneficial, since those contributors who are in good faith attempting to rewrite may not recognize where the issues lie without them. If there is a passage of several consecutive sentences dealing with similarities, this may be sufficient demonstration. Otherwise, showing the pattern in several separated sentences is typically better than offering one, brief example.

Hi. I'm afraid the [[ArticleName]] article you wrote may be a copyright infringement of [source], since the text is very [[WP:close paraphrasing|closely paraphrased]]. While facts are not copyrightable, creative elements of presentation - including both structure and language - are. For an example of close paraphrasing, consider the following:
:*example from source
The article says:
:*example from article
There are other passages that similarly follow quite closely.

As a website that is widely read and reused, Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, to ensure that we protect the interests of rightsholders as well as those of the Wikimedia Foundation and our reusers. Wikipedia's [[WP:C|copyright policies]] require that the content we take from non-free sources, aside from brief and clearly marked quotations, be rewritten from scratch. So that we can be sure it does not constitute a derivative work, this article should be revised to separate it further from its source. The essay [[Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing]] contains some suggestions for rewriting that may help avoid these issues. The article [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches]], while about plagiarism rather than copyright concerns, also contains some suggestions for reusing material from sources that may be helpful, beginning under "Avoiding plagiarism".

Please let me know if you have questions about this.

• As with the first example, you will need to fill in your own examples as well as supplying the article's title and the source url. It was engineered for cases when the paraphrasing is not enough of a concern to require blanking and {{close paraphrasing}} is used.

See also

• Wikipedia:Plagiarism (guideline)
• Wikipedia:Copy-paste
• Idea-expression divide
• Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright#Derivative works
• Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary (guideline)
• Wikipedia:Plot-only description of fictional works
• Wikipedia talk:Copyrights/Archive 12#Derivative works (discussion of paraphrase and abridgement)
• Wikipedia:Quotations#Fair use
• Signpost dispatch on plagiarism

External links

• Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words, Purdue University
• How to Paraphrase Without Plagiarizing, Colorado State University
• Neill A. Levy (Fall/Winter 1998). "Tweedledum and Tweedledee—Plagiarism and Copyright" (pdf). Cinahl Information Systems. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) (A lawyer briefly sets out the principles of substantial similarity & how to distinguish "legitimate" paraphrase from infringement)