Wikipedia:Plagiarism

This guideline is under construction, see Wikipedia:Copyright problems for the current guideline on plagiarism on Wikipedia.

Plagiarism is the copying of material produced by others, either verbatim or with only minimal changes, without attributing that material to the original author. Material can be plagiarized from books and other printed media, websites, and GFDL-licensed works, such as the work of other Wikipedia editors. The copyright status of the work is irrelevant, directly copying a public-domain work is still plagiarism unless the original work is noted. Some, but not all, common facts and data (eg. material commonly found in infoboxes, such as corporate data, species taxonomy, etc.) can be freely copied, though copying the method of presentation of such data can sometimes be considered plagiarism.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Copying the works of others and presenting them as your own is not acceptable practice here.

Wikipedia will naturally refer to and include some material that comes from outside sources. This material may be in the public domain, may be included under a fair use argument, or it may be under a license compatible with the license used on Wikipedia, the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Examples of public-domain works include text and images from United States Government publications, and older works—such as the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica—that are no longer, or never were, covered by copyright. Some further examples are at Category:Attribution templates.

— Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Header

Even when material is not covered by copyright, it is still important to state its origin, including its authors or creators. Failure to include the origin of a work is misleading and also makes it more difficult for readers and editors to refer to the material's source. It may also violate the terms of the GFDL. If correctly attributed when submitted to Wikipedia, the resulting text can be edited by subsequent editors, within the bounds of Wikipedia polices and guidelines. However, subsequent rewritings should not lose the sense of the original, or lose track of where a concept, idea, or phrase originated from, unless the text has been so substantially rewritten as to be a new piece of work. A clear distinction should also be drawn between work submitted by Wikipedia editors as their own work (which can be "edited mercilessly") and Wikipedia editors submitting work written by other people (in which case, more care is needed).

Material that is plagiarised but which does not violate copyright does not need to be removed from Wikipedia if it can be properly sourced. Add appropriate source information to the article wherever possible, or move unsourced material to an article's talk page until sources can be found.

Direct copying of copyrighted works may be a copyright violation. Doing so without attribution is also plagiarism. Such additions can be dealt with either by attribution, or by truncation or removal of the copied material. If the material added is short and properly attributed and quoted, it may be possible to use it under fair-use - see Wikipedia:Non-free content policy.

Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. Copyrighted text must be attributed and used verbatim. Any alterations must be clearly marked, i.e. [brackets] for added text, an ellipsis (...) for removed text, and emphasis noted after the quotation as "(emphasis added)" or "(emphasis in the original)". Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited.

— Wikipedia:Non-free content

Sometimes material from a copyrighted work is copied into Wikipedia with minimal rewriting. This may still be a violation of copyright as a derivative work, though the same concerns about plagiarism would apply if the phrases, concepts and ideas in the copied material were not attributed to the original author.

If an editor has copied text or figures into Wikipedia without proper attribution, politely refer him to Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Citing sources, and/or Help:Citations quick reference. Editors who have difficulties or questions about this guidance can be referred to the Help Desk.

Public domain sources

See also Wikipedia:Public domain

How to properly attribute PD material

See also: Category:Attribution templates

Material from public domain and free sources is welcome on Wikipedia, provided it is properly identified and attributed. The best practice is to copy free content verbatim and indicate in the edit summary the source of the material. Further changes such as modernizing language and correcting errors should be done in separate edits after the original insertion of text. This allows a clear comparison to be made between the original source text and the current version in the article.

If you base an article on a public domain source, you should place a note to that effect in the references section. You can use an attribution template or you can write your own note. For an example, see the references section in planetary nomenclature, which uses a large amount of text from the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

If you want to quote a reasonably large amount of text, but such text is a small portion of the article (say, a paragraph or two) you should use a blockquote followed by a reference to the resource. For example:

“ OSTM/Jason 2's five primary instruments are improved versions of those flying on Jason 1. These technological advances will allow scientists to monitor conditions in ocean coastal regions -- home to about half of Earth's population. Compared with Jason 1 measurements, OSTM/Jason 2 will have substantially increased accuracy and provide data to within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of coastlines, nearly 50 percent closer to shore than in the past. Such improvements will be welcome news for all those making their living on the sea, from sailors and fishermen to workers in offshore industries. NOAA will use the improved data to better predict hurricane intensity, which is directly affected by the amount of heat stored in the upper ocean. ”

If the amount of text you want to use is small (i.e. less than a sentence) quotation marks and an inline citation will suffice. Example: Small craters on Mars (typically with diameters less than 60 km) are named after "[s]mall towns and villages of the world with populations of approximately 100,000 or less".

Large portions of text used in the article can be changed through the normal process of wiki editing, the article history will show the evolution of the text. Material within blockquotes and normal quoteation marks should not be altered, with the exception of adding wiki-links. If material inside a quotation is shown to be inaccurate or out-of-date, the entire quotation must be replaced with rewritten text.

For images, you must specify correct source and licensing information otherwise they run the risk of deletion (see Commons:Licensing and Wikipedia:Image use policy). In particular, you should never use {{PD-self}}, {{GFDL-self}} or {{self}} if the image isn't yours. If the source requests a credit line, e.g. "NASA/JPL/MSSS", you should put one in the author field of {{information}}.

TODO: Also needed here - when to remove the attribution template...

How to find plagiarism

• Text plagiarism:

• Elgoog hcraes
• Plagiarism detector
• Source checking, the hard way
• Editor's "reputation"
• ...

If this image of Miranda was tagged {{PD-self}} then it would be suspected plagiarism because the uploader probably wasn't involved with Voyager 2.

• Image plagiarism:

• Is it likely that the uploader took the picture?
• Google image search
• Consistency of EXIF data
• Uploader's "reputation"
• ...

What to do if you find plagiarism

Plagiarism doesn't have to be immediately removed, unlike copyright violations. It does need to be properly attributed to its source. If you find an example of plagiarism, contact the editor responsible, point them to this guideline page and ask them to provide the proper attribution. You can also change the copied material or provide the attribution on your own. If you find that an editor persists in plagiarising other work after being notified of this guideline, report them at WP:AN so that an administrator can deal with the issue.

If you find a plagiarized image, you can correct the source and licensing data or point the problem out to the uploader. If the original image is non-free content, you can tag it as a copyvio with {{db-i9}} or {{copyvio}} on Commons for deletion. Be sure to provide the real source in both cases.

What is not plagiarism

See also: Wikipedia:When to cite

• Factual information in infoboxes.
  
• Lists of information [need some copyright opinions here!]
• Common knowledge
• etc.

Copying within Wikipedia

(this is a tricky issue - but we do need some firm guidelines on copying around en:wiki itself)

Language translations between various WMF wiki's are perfectly acceptable provided that the original source is clearly indicated. This can be done via the edit summary or preferably by putting a note on the article talk page with a link to the original source. See Wikipedia:Translation and Category:Interwiki translation templates.

For guidelines on copying and moving material within Wikipedia itself, see WP:MERGE, WP:SPLIT and WP:SUMMARY.

When you find directly copied material

Large portions of many articles have been directly copied from other free content sources. For instance, Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 was used as a source to build many articles in 2002. These articles were marked with the {{1911}} template to make it clear that text had been taken from this source. Similar templates for other free content can be found at Category:Attribution templates. These templates are an accepted way to give credit to free content when that free content is used to build Wikipedia, and there is no immediate need to change articles that use them.

From time to time, editors encounter articles that contain text directly copied from other sources without adequate attribution. If you find an articles where this has occurred, do something. If the material is a copyright violation, remove it or tag the article with the {{copyvio}} template. If the material is not a copyright violation, then attribute it, change it, or flag it with template such as {{copypaste}} so that others can deal with it.

Resources

• University of New South Wales resource on plagiarism
• similar links
• probably a (free) plagiarism detector here