避免抄袭
一旦一个想法变成文字并发表，他们就变成了精神财富，作者就对他们拥有权利，就像他或者她对房子和汽车这些实物财产一样。唯一真正的区别是精神财富不能用钱购买，只能通过脑力劳动获得。任何人只要尝试绞尽脑汁去解决问题或者尝试将一个观念变成清晰而且有意义的文字，都能够体会到脑力劳动有多困难。
抄袭就是将他人的想法或者文字冒充成自己的。这无疑是偷窃和欺骗的双重冒犯。在学术界，抄袭被认为是违反道德，会受到论文和课程不及格的处罚，甚至被机构开除。在学术界以外，如果这个想法或者文字的拥有者想要提出上诉，这可以被指控为犯罪。不管哪一个，就如下面的案例所显示，抄袭者都会因为不诚信和耻辱而受损。
•当南非一所大学得知马克·查贝尔教授剽窃了佛罗里达大学金伯利·拉内格伦的大部分博士论文时，该大学解雇了查贝尔。此外，授予他的博士学位的大学撤销了这一决定。
• 当美国参议员约瑟夫拜登寻求1988年民主党总统候选人提名时，有人透露他抄袭了英国政治家尼尔金诺克（NeilKinnock）和罗伯特肯尼迪（RobertKennedy）的演讲中的段落。同时被发现，当他在法学院的时候，他抄袭了一篇法律文章的大段文字，这些接踵而来的丑闻迫使拜登撤销他的候选人资格，并且继续对他的声誉造成不良影响。
• 历史学家斯蒂芬·安布罗斯（StephenAmbrose）的名声因多年来他抄袭了几位作家的作品而受到玷污。林登·约翰逊总统的历史学家兼顾问多丽丝·卡恩斯·古德温（DorisKearns Goodwin）也遭遇了同样的尴尬，因为她被发现自己的一本书从多个地方抄袭。
•1998年，苏格兰历史学家詹姆斯·A·麦凯（James A.Mackay）出版了亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔（Alexander Graham Bell）的传记，罗伯特·布鲁斯（Robert Bruce）提出证据，证明这本书大部分是从他1973年的传记中抄袭而来的，这本传记曾获得普利策奖。麦凯被迫从市场中撤回他的书籍。（难以置信的是，他并没有从这次事件中吸取教训，因为他随后出版了约翰·保罗·琼斯的传记，这本传记是从1942年塞缪尔·艾略特·莫里森的一本书中抄袭而来的。
• 当《纽约时报》记者杰森·布莱尔被发现抄袭了其他记者的报道，以及编造引用和细节时，他在耻辱中辞职。不久之后，两位曾是他最亲密导师的高级编辑也辞职了，据报道，这是因为他们对布莱尔的报道和随后的丑闻处理中不负责任。
有些抄袭的案例是有意的，不诚信的行为，有些是粗心的结果。但是不少，可能绝大多数是误会。"你的论文要基于你的研究而不是你没有根据的意见"和“不要将别人的想法据为己有”这样的指引看上去有些自相矛盾，会让学生困惑，特别是没有提供清晰的说明对时候，就更加困惑了。幸运的是，这里有个方法，既可以符合指引的要求，还可以避免在过程中发生抄袭。
第一步:当你在研究某个课题时，将你找到的观点和你的分开来。首先将每个你查询到的信息来源记录下来。如果来源于互联网，就记录网页地址，作者和项目的标题，还有你访问网页的日期。如果来源于书，记录下作者，标题，出版地，出版社和出版日期。对于杂志或期刊文章，记录下作者、出版物名字和发行的时间。如果是广播电视，记录节目的标题，电台和播放时间。
第二步:你在读这些资料的时候，标记出你要引用到你文章里的观念。如果作者的措辞非常清晰和精确，那就完整的复制它们，并在周围做好引用标记。或者改述——也就是，用你的语言重新叙述作者的观点。写下原作者内容出现的页码。
如果作者的观念触发了你的想法——比如一个问题，这个观念和以前你读过的观念之间的联系，或者对作者所说支持或者提出挑战的你自己的经验——写下来并打上方括号（不是圆括号），这样你就能够在回顾的时候识别哪些是你的想法。下面是一个研究记录的案例，展示了些两个步骤。
阿德勒，莫蒂默J. （Adler, Mortimer J.）《伟大的思想：西方思想词典》（纽约：麦克米伦，1992年）说，从古至今，古希腊的哲学家们都在就各种思想是否正确进行争论。值得注意的是，大多数著名的思想家都认同真理是什么——“思想与现实的保持一致”（867页）。还讲到，弗洛伊德 （Freud）将这个看成真理的科学观点。引用弗洛伊德的说法：“和外部真实世界的一致性我们称之为真理。这是科学工作的目标，即使这些工作的实用价值没有为我们带来利益。”（869页）［我认为正确的陈述符合事实，错误的陈述不符合事实。］
任何时候你再看这条记录，甚至一年后，你也能够一眼就分清楚哪个观点和文字是哪个作者的，哪个是你的。开始的三个句子中，一个是直接引用，两个是作者观念的改述。下一个是直接引用，最后在括号里的句子是你的观点。
第三步：在你写论文的时候，审慎地使用引用或者改述的方式将别人的想法和文字变成你论文的一部分。另外，分别标注不同作者说的话。你在这里的目的是明确哪个观点和文字都属于哪个作者。在正式场合，在脚注中明确；在非正式场合，简单的提及作者的名字就可以了。
下面是一个例子，说明如何使用莫蒂默·阿德勒的材料写成文章。（注意脚注所用的格式。）第二段说明了如何扩展您自己的想法：
莫蒂默·J·阿德勒解释说，经过这么多年代，从古希腊人时代起，哲学家们就各种观点是否是真理进行了争论。但对阿德勒来说，值得注意的是，即使他们争辩，大多数著名的思想家都同意什么是真理。他们将真理看成“思想与现实的保持一致”。阿德勒指出，西格蒙德·弗洛伊德认为这也是科学的真理观。他引用弗洛伊德的话语：“和外部真实世界的一致性我们称之为真理。这是科学工作的目标，即使这些工作的实用价值没有为我们带来利益。”
这种真理符合论的观点与常识一致，即一个陈述如果符合事实就为真，如果不符合事实就为假。比如，“纽约世贸中心的双子塔于2002年9月11日被摧毁”的说法是错误的，因为它们在前一年被摧毁了。我可能发自内心地相信这个说法是真的，但我的相信决不会影响事情的真相。同样的，如果一个无辜的人被判有罪，法庭的判决和全世界的认可都不会使他更加无辜。我们可以自由地想我们想要的，但是我们的思想不能改变现实。
*莫蒂默·J·阿德勒，《伟大的思想：西方思想词典》（纽约：麦克米伦出版社，1992年），第867、869页。
原文：
Avoiding Plagiarism12
Once ideas are put into words and published, they become intellectual property, and the author has the same rights over them as he or she has over a material possession such as a house or a car. The only real difference is that intellectual property is purchased with mental effort rather than money. Anyone who has ever wracked his or her brain trying to solve a problem or trying to put an idea into clear and meaningful words can appreciate how difficult mental effort can be.
Plagiarism is passing off other people’s ideas or words as one’s own. It is doubly offensive in that it both steals and deceives. In the academic world, plagiarism is considered an ethical violation and is punished by a failing grade for a paper or a course or even by dismissal from the institution. Outside the academy, it is a crime that can be prosecuted if the person to whom the ideas and words belong wishes to bring charges. Either way, the offender suffers dishonor and disgrace, as the following examples illustrate:
• When a university in South Africa learned that professor Marks Chabel had plagiarized most of his doctoral dissertation from Kimberly Lanegran of the University of Florida, the university fired Chabel. Moreover, the university that had awarded him his Ph.D. revoked it.
• When U.S. Senator Joseph Biden was seeking the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, it was revealed that he had plagiarized passages from speeches by British politician Neil Kinnock and by Robert Kennedy.
It was also learned that, while in law school, he had plagiarized a number of pages from a legal article. The ensuing scandal led Biden to withdraw his candidacy and has continued to stain his reputation.
• The reputation of historian Stephen Ambrose was tarnished by allegations that over the years he plagiarized the work of several authors. Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and advisor to President Lyndon Johnson, suffered a similar embarrassment when she was discovered to have plagiarized from more than one source in one of her books.
• When James A. Mackay, a Scottish historian, published a biography of Alexander Graham Bell in 1998, Robert Bruce presented evidence that the book was largely plagiarized from his 1973 biography, which had won a Pulitzer Prize. Mackay was forced to withdraw his book from the market. (Incredibly, he did not learn from the experience because he then published a biography of John Paul Jones, which was plagiarized from a 1942 book by Samuel Eliot Morison.)
• When New York Times reporter Jason Blair was discovered to have plagiarized stories from other reporters and fabricated quotations and details in his stories, he resigned his position in disgrace. Soon afterward, the two senior editors who had been his closest mentors also resigned, reportedly because of their irresponsible handling of Blair’s reportage and the subsequent scandal.
Some cases of plagiarism are attributable to intentional dishonesty, others to carelessness. But many, perhaps most, are due to misunderstanding. The instructions “Base your paper on research rather than on your own unfounded opinions” and “Don’t present other people’s ideas as your own” seem contradictory and may confuse students, especially if no clarification is offered. Fortunately, there is a way to honor both instructions and, in the process, to avoid plagiarism.
Step 1: When you are researching a topic, keep your sources’ ideas separate from your own. Begin by keeping a record of each source of information you consult. For an Internet source, record the Web site address, the author and title of the item, and the date you visited the site. For a book, record the author, title, place of publication, publisher, and date of publication. For a magazine or journal article, record the author, title, the name of the publication, and its date of issue. For a TV or radio broadcast, record the program title, station, and date of transmission.
Step 2: As you read each source, note the ideas you want to refer to in your writing. If the author’s words are unusually clear and concise, copy them exactly and put quotation marks around them. Otherwise, paraphrase— that is, restate the author’s ideas in your own words. Write down the number( s) of the page(s) on which the author’s passage appears.
If the author’s idea triggers a response in your mind—such as a question, a connection between this idea and something else you’ve read, or an experience of your own that supports or challenges what the author says—write it down and put brackets (not parentheses) around it so that you will be able to identify it as your own when you review your notes. Here is a sample research record illustrating these two steps:
Adler, Mortimer J. The Great Ideas: A Lexicon of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1992) Says that throughout the ages, from ancient Greece, philosophers have argued about whether various ideas are true. Says it’s remarkable that most renowned thinkers have agreed about what truth is—”a correspondence between thought and reality.” 867 Also says that Freud saw this as the scientific view of truth. Quotes Freud: “This correspondence with the real external world we call truth. It is the aim of scientific work, even when the practical value of that work does not interest us.” 869 [I say true statements fit the facts; false statements do not.]
Whenever you look back on this record, even a year from now, you will be able to tell at a glance which ideas and words are the author’s and which are yours. The first three sentences are, with the exception of the directly quoted part, paraphrases of the author’s ideas. Next is a direct quotation. The final sentence, in brackets, is your own idea.
Step 3: When you compose your paper, work borrowed ideas and words into your own writing by judicious use of quoting and paraphrasing. In addition, give credit to the various authors. Your goal here is to eliminate all doubt about which ideas and words belong to whom. In formal presentations, this crediting is done in footnotes; in informal ones, it is done simply by mentioning the author’s name.
Here is an example of how the material from Mortimer Adler might be worked into a composition. (Note the form that is used for the footnote.) The second paragraph illustrates how your own idea might be expanded:
Mortimer J. Adler explains that throughout the ages, from the time of the ancient Greeks, philosophers have argued about whether various ideas are true. But to Adler the remarkable thing is that, even as they argued, most renowned thinkers have agreed about what truth is. They saw it as “a correspondence between thought and reality.” Adler points out that Sigmund Freud believed this was also the scientific view of truth. He quotes Freud as follows: “This correspondence with the real external world we call truth. It is the aim of scientific work, even when the practical value of that work does not interest us.”*
This correspondence view of truth is consistent with the commonsense rule that a statement is true if it fits the facts and false if it does not. For example, the statement “The twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center were destroyed on September 11, 2002,” is false because they were destroyed the previous year. I may sincerely believe that it is true, but my believing in no way affects the truth of the matter. In much the same way, if an innocent man is convicted of a crime, neither the court’s decision nor the world’s acceptance of it will make him any less innocent. We may be free to think what we wish, but our thinking can’t alter reality.
*Mortimer J. Adler, The Great Ideas: A Lexicon of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan,1992), pp. 867, 869.
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