Plagiarism means

Correct — D, (d) It is presenting the work of someone else as one's own.

Plagiarism is the copying of another person’s ideas, text or other creative work and presenting it as one’s own, especially without acknowledgement. The keyed option gives that definition in almost those words, and no other option is a definition of anything the word means.

Two elements make the offence. The first is taking — words, data, arguments, images, code, a design. The second, and the one that matters, is the passing off: presenting the borrowed thing as though it were yours. Borrowing with acknowledgement is not plagiarism at all, it is scholarship; a quotation in inverted commas with the source named, a paraphrase with a citation, a table reproduced with a credit line are all perfectly proper. What converts them into plagiarism is the silence about where they came from.

The word carries its own history in it. It comes from the Latin ‘plagiarius’, a kidnapper or abductor, applied to literary theft in Rome; the writer whose lines were stolen described them as children carried off. That is a good image to keep, because it fixes the essential idea — the taking of something that belongs to another and the claiming of it as one’s own family.

It is also worth separating plagiarism from copyright infringement, since the two overlap without being the same. Copyright is a legal right in a particular expression, enforced in court and limited in time. Plagiarism is a breach of honesty. Work old enough to be out of copyright can still be plagiarised, and a properly credited quotation can still infringe a copyright if it is long enough and unlicensed.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)There was an epidemic of plague in the area — ‘There was an epidemic of plague in the area’ is built on the sound of the first syllable and on nothing else. ‘Plague’ and ‘plagiarism’ have no common root: the first goes back to a Latin word for a blow or a wound, the second to ‘plagiarius’, a kidnapper. Two English words that begin alike are not related in meaning, and a vocabulary paper regularly sets one against the other for exactly that reason — flair and flare, principal and principle, complement and compliment, ingenious and ingenuous. The habit worth building is to reach for the whole word before the first syllable: nothing in ‘plagiarism’ beyond ‘pla-’ points to disease, and its ‘-ism’ ending points instead to a practice or a doctrine, which is where the next wrong option comes from.
• (b)It is a sort of political philosophy — ‘It is a sort of political philosophy’ reasons from the ending. English does use ‘-ism’ for political and philosophical systems — socialism, liberalism, federalism — so a candidate who does not know the word can decide from its shape that it names a doctrine. But ‘-ism’ is much wider than that: it also names practices and conditions with no politics in them, as in criticism, journalism, mannerism, tourism, absenteeism. Plagiarism belongs to that second group; it names a practice, and a discreditable one. The option is worth pausing over as an example of a genuine but unreliable clue: a suffix narrows the field of possible meanings without ever choosing between them, so it is useful for eliminating and dangerous for selecting.
• (c)It indicates a happy community spirit like in playing Holi — ‘It indicates a happy community spirit like in playing Holi’ has no connection with the word in either sound or sense, and it is the fourth option that the format requires. Its interest is in what it is doing there: it invites a candidate who has no idea of the word to look for a familiar cultural anchor and reason towards something warm and harmless. Nothing about ‘plagiarism’ is warm or harmless — it names an act of dishonesty, and the tone of the right answer is accordingly cold. Register is a genuine tool in these items. A term that turns up in codes of conduct, university rules and editorial policy is not going to be defined by a sentence about festivity, and a candidate who sorts the four options by tone before reading them closely will set this one aside at once.

Plagiarism is the presentation of somebody else’s work or ideas as your own, without acknowledgement. It covers more than copied sentences: an argument, a set of findings, a table of data, a photograph, a piece of software, a design, even a distinctive structure of exposition can be plagiarised. It also covers the case where the words are changed but the substance is lifted — paraphrasing a source closely and citing nothing is plagiarism as surely as copying it, which is why the rule taught in every writing manual is to cite the source of the idea and not merely of the wording.

What makes it a serious matter in official life, rather than a schoolroom fault, is that the same principle runs through public administration. A note that reproduces a consultant’s report without saying so misleads the officer who signs it; an examination answer copied from another candidate’s script misstates who knows what; a research paper that recycles another’s data corrupts the record everybody else relies on.

The distinctions worth holding are three. Quotation, with marks and a source, is legitimate. Paraphrase, with a source, is legitimate. Both without a source are plagiarism. And plagiarism is not the same thing as copyright infringement: copyright is a legal monopoly in an expression for a limited term, plagiarism is a failure of honesty, and each can occur without the other.

Key facts

• Plagiarism is copying another person’s ideas, text or other creative work and presenting it as one’s own, especially without acknowledgement.
• The offence lies in the passing off, not in the borrowing: quotation with inverted commas and a source, or paraphrase with a citation, is legitimate use.
• The word comes from the Latin ‘plagiarius’, meaning a kidnapper or abductor, which was applied in Rome to those who stole another writer’s lines.
• Plagiarism and copyright infringement are not the same. Copyright is a legal right in an expression for a limited term; plagiarism is a breach of honesty, and work out of copyright can still be plagiarised.
• Ideas as well as words can be plagiarised, so a close paraphrase without a citation is plagiarism even though no sentence has been copied.

Common traps

• Answering from the first syllable and choosing the option about plague.
• Treating ‘-ism’ as a guarantee that the word names a political or philosophical system.
• Thinking that changing the words removes the offence. Paraphrasing a source without citing it is plagiarism.
• Assuming plagiarism and copyright infringement are two names for the same thing; the first is a breach of honesty, the second a breach of a legal right.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A research scholar rewrites a paragraph from a published article in his own words and includes it in his thesis without naming the article. This is best described as

  • (a)legitimate paraphrase, because the words are his own
  • (b)plagiarism, because the idea has been presented as his own without acknowledgement
  • (c)copyright infringement only, since no sentence was copied
  • (d)quotation, because the substance is unchanged

  Answer(b) plagiarism, because the idea has been presented as his own without acknowledgement — changing the wording does not remove the duty to cite the source of the idea. Option (a) states the common misconception, option (c) confuses the ethical wrong with the legal one, and option (d) misuses ‘quotation’, which requires the source’s own words to be reproduced and marked.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following statements about plagiarism and copyright is correct ?

  • (a)Every act of plagiarism is also an infringement of copyright
  • (b)A work whose copyright has expired cannot be plagiarised
  • (c)Plagiarism is a breach of honesty, while copyright protects a particular expression for a limited term
  • (d)Copyright protects ideas, while plagiarism concerns only wording

  Answer(c) Plagiarism is a breach of honesty, while copyright protects a particular expression for a limited term — the two overlap but neither implies the other. Options (a) and (b) assume they are the same thing, and option (d) inverts the position, since copyright subsists in expression while plagiarism can be committed with ideas alone.