Is it plagiarism if you wrote it

I have seen this happening in my field twice. Both researchers became famous because they did some research that was completed by others before its time being completely unaware of that research existence. Neither the editors, or the referees helped with this.

In one case, the researcher who was in this situation learned from colleagues that similar work was done in the 70's by a prominent Russian scientist, so he acknowledged it, and everyone is citing the Russian guy ever since. The good outcome is that the Russian guy made his re-entry in the field and made more contributions.

In the other case, the original paper was written by a Japanese scientist, who was a postdoc at the time, and everyone forgot about it. Three years later, another researcher wrote a very similar paper, became famous for it, but never cited the Japanese guy. In fact, very few people in the field cite him.

Since many fields are becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, I don't believe a single guy can do proper literature search. You can use google and web of science and whatever tools, but unless you are specialist in a field, you are very likely to miss something. Even if your random walk from citation to citation takes a significant percentage of your time, it may not be ergodic. For better ergodicity is good to have conversations with older scientists who might have stumbled upon your reference in the past. In any case, if you succeed to do your literature search properly, you will notice that there are a few others who didn't. The most unpleasant are the ones that should have cited you, and don't even answer the email you send them.

To answer the question, I don't believe it's plagiarism. In fact, before the advent of specialized science journals, it was quite a common situation in science. -- Remember all those two-name theorems from mathematics. Many of them were developed years apart by different scientists.

We all know buying a paper or copying a paper verbatim is plagiarism. You may not, however, realize that plagiarism can take other forms. Below are five common types of plagiarism:

Five Popular Types of Plagiarism

Copying and Pasting Plagiarism

Anytime you copy and paste verbatim from a source and do not give the source credit it is plagiarism. If you do copy and paste a passage word for word, you must put the information in quotations (i.e. " ") marks and give credit to the author. This is called a direct quote. However, you do not want to fill your paper with direct quotations. Most of the content of your research paper should be ideas you've drawn from your research along with research put into your own words. Direct quotes are used when you feel what the author has said is particularly useful as worded.

Word Switch Plagiarism

But what if I copy and paste a passage and change up the words? Grabbing a thesaurus and finding synonyms for words is known as "Word Switch Plagiarism." You may choose to paraphrase or summarize a passage; however, the passage must be put into your own words. This means you not only change what words are used, but also the style and voice of the passage. Which bring us to...

Style Plagiarism

"Style Plagiarism" takes place when you follow the source material's structure line by line. Even if you put the information in your own words you're plagiarizing the author's style of reasoning.

Metaphor Plagiarism

Metaphors are figures of speech used to elucidate an author's point or paint a more vivid picture of an idea. For example, "Cumulus clouds look like mounds of fluffy marshmallows" is a metaphor.

Idea Plagiarism

Plain and simple: If it's not your own idea, you've got to cite it unless it's common knowledge. Examples of common knowledge are things like the sky is blue and the United States is made up of fifty states. If you're in doubt, cite the source.

Plain and simple: If it's not your own idea, you've got to cite it unless it's common knowledge. Examples of common knowledge are things like the sky is blue and the United States is made up of fifty states. If you're in doubt, cite the source.

Five Types of Plagiarism: Dr. C. Barnbaum of Valdosta State University

Types of Plagiarism

Not Crediting a Source

Copying word-for-word from another source (example a) without putting the original words within quotation marks and adding a citation referring to the original source. Even if you are putting the ideas from that source into your own words (example b), you still must credit the source. Here is an illustration of how both these situations work in an excerpt from an imaginary student paper. The words plagiarized from the original author are highlighted. (The following examples use the American Psychological Association referencing style (APA), which is common in the social sciences):

Original text

"It is not a fragment society, but exhibits the ideological diversity of European societies, although it has a more liberal cast."

• (a)Quoting directly:
  (Plagiarism). . . . Canada, unlike the United States, did not stop importing ideological developments from Europe when it was founded. It is not a fragment society, but exhibits the ideological diversity of European societies, although it has a more liberal cast…
  (Correct). . . . Canada, unlike the United States, did not stop importing ideological developments from Europe when it was founded. As Christian and Campbell state, "[i]t is not a fragment society, but exhibits the ideological diversity of European societies, although it has a more liberal cast"(1990, 283) . . . .

• (b)Paraphrasing:
  (Plagiarism). . . . Unlike the United States, Canada is influenced by the on-going development of a variety of political ideologies in Europe, although these ideologies have never been as extreme in their Canadian versions.
  (Correct). . . . Christian and Campbell have noted that, unlike the United States, Canada is influenced by the on-going development of a variety of political ideologies in Europe, although these ideologies have never been as extreme in their Canadian versions (1990, 283).

Paraphrasing too Closely, even if you do Credit the Source

So we all know that you cannot take the ideas from another text, even when you are putting them completely into your own words, without citing the source. But there is a more insidious kind of plagiarism that can take place when you are paraphrasing someone else's work. If you change the order of words or ideas from the original source, and use some of your own words mixed in with the original words, you are still plagiarizing even when you cite the source. In this first example, even though the student has credited the source with a citation, which is good, s/he has not put the original text completely into her/his own words and has attempted to deceive the reader by making the text appear to be a paraphrase of the original by turning the order back-to-front. The words that appeared in the original text are highlighted.

Original text

"It is not a fragment society, but exhibits the ideological diversity of European societies, although it has a more liberal cast."

• (Plagiarism). . . . Christian and Campbell have noted that, unlike the United States, Canada is not a society that has broken away from ideological developments in Europe, but, even if it has a more liberal cast, it demonstrates the ideological diversity of European societies (1990, 283). 
   
• (Correct) . . . . Christian and Campbell have noted that, unlike the United States, Canada is influenced by the on-going development of a variety of political ideologies in Europe, although these ideologies have never been as extreme in their Canadian versions (1990, 283).

Probably in this case, one would choose either to paraphrase completely or to quote the original words.

Using statistics from someone else's work without crediting the source

Charts, tables, or statistics inside a text or in other forms are the intellectual property of those who created them. For this reason the original creator must be cited in your text. You can see that there is also a rhetorical advantage to citing the source, because the very fact that a published author has arrived at statistics which support the claims you are making in your paper strengthens your own argument.

(Plagiarism) If we simply inserted this table into our paper, either by scanning, photocopying, or by re-typing it ourselves, and we did not cite the source, it would be plagiarism, because readers are led to believe that the author of the paper is the person who compiled the statistics and made up the graph.

For example:

. . . . The following graph shows the distribution of crime rates all across Canada in the year 2003.

These crime rates are compiled from lists of crimes ranging from violent crimes to disturbing the peace . . . .

(Correct) The correct procedure would be to scan, photocopy, or type the table ourselves, and to cite the source, as follows:

. . . . The following graph shows the distribution of crime rates all across Canada in the year 2003.

(Source: Canada. Statistics Canada, 2004)

These crime rates are compiled from lists of crimes ranging from violent crimes to disturbing the peace . . . 

In some disciplines, the identification of the source is prefaced by the word "Source:" followed by the publishing details in the same order as the bibliographical style used in the paper. Check in your own style guide to see if that is what will be expected in your own paper.) In addition, if you want to make any notation of changes or adaptations you might have made to the original text, you would also note that here.

Using images, photographs, maps or other illustrative devices without citing sources

The practice would be similar to how one would identify the source of a table or figure.

So, here again is our original photograph. Imagine that you wish to place it in your own text, and write your own description, in order to make the photograph apply to your own paper and illustrate a point you are arguing.

Fig.1. "Troop Front" Canadian Mounted Rifles with Second

Contingent South Africa (Source: Library and Archives

Canada. photo # PA-028895)

(Plagiarism) To insert the photograph into your text with your own explanatory text or the text taken from the original source beneath it but with no acknowledgment of the original source would be plagiarism. Even if you have taken a photograph yourself it is wise to cite yourself as the creator. This will make the source clear to any reader.

. . . Canada first sent her troops abroad in the South African, or Boer War, from 1899-1902.

It is interesting to note that . . . . as we can see in the picture above . . . .

(Correct) Just as with tables and charts, the source of the original photograph must be acknowledged, as in this example.

. . . Canada first sent her troops abroad in the South African, or Boer War, from 1899-1902.

Fig.1. "Troop Front" Canadian Mounted Rifles with Second
Contingent South Africa (Source: Library and Archives
Canada. photo # PA-028895)

It is interesting to note that . . . as we can see in Figure 1 . . .  

Buying or copying another person's paper or assignment or hiring an essay-writing service to write your paper

Although it must be obvious to everyone that hiring another person to write an essay for you is plagiarism, copying portions of another person's work is also bad. Copying a paper or portions of a paper from an essay bank of old papers or copying old lab reports would be an example of this kind of plagiarism.

Sharing code for a computer program with another student or taking code from the Web or another source without citing that source

If you are in any doubt as to the extent of collaboration permitted, consult your instructor.

(Plagiarism) When you are working on a group project that is to be graded individually, and you share the same code with each other, it is very clear that you have collaborated illegally. 

(Correct) When you are working on a group project that is to be graded individually, you should discuss the problem without reference to code. Do not share code with the others in your group; nor should you look at any part of another student's solution, whether it be on paper or the computer screen.

Downloading material from the Internet without proper citation

The Internet may seem free and anarchic, but the same rules of appropriate citation apply to material found on the Web as for any printed source.

(Plagiarism) The following passage is included in a student text without citing the source:. . . . A little searching quickly reveals that Sahr's site is not the only repository for plagiarizable papers. There are several large sites which sell papers, and even more which maintain small collections available for free. There are even some which promise custom-written papers. 
 

(Correct) . . . .As Leland says, "A little searching quickly reveals that Sahr's site is not the only repository for plagiarizable papers. There are several large sites which sell papers, and even more which maintain small collections available for free. There are even some which promise custom-written papers " (2002, ¶ 3).

Note that many electronic sources don't have page numbers, but might have paragraph numbers. If there is a paragraph number, use either the ¶ symbol or the abbreviation "para." If neither page nor paragraph is there, use section headings if possible.

Padding a Bibliography or Reference List, to suggest that you have done research when you haven't

This type of academic misconduct often occurs when students leave their writing assignments to the last moment, or when they want to appear to have done more work than they really have, perhaps because their professor has required that they have a certain number of books and articles in their reference list. But if you think of plagiarism as defined as the intent to deceive someone about the work you have done, then you can understand that saying you have read something you haven't read also falls into this category.

Making up statistics or other important facts, and citing a false source

This kind of invention, pretending that the information or source you are including in your paper is real, is serious because it strikes at the heart of the climate of trust that must exist in academia. If people are not honest about reporting their results, their research is invalid, and cannot be a basis for further work.

Does it count as plagiarism if you wrote it?

Is it plagiarism if I wrote it for another class?

Is it still plagiarism if you rephrase it?

Can I reuse an essay I wrote?