An Analysis of the Plagiarism Spectrum in Higher Education

This essay delves into the multifaceted issue of plagiarism, exploring the "plagiarism spectrum" with a focus on various academic violations beyond the common issues of cloning and direct copying. It examines less obvious forms of plagiarism such as "find-replace," where key words are altered but the original content is retained, and "remix," which involves combining paraphrased material from multiple sources. The essay also covers "recycle" plagiarism, the reuse of previous work without proper citation, and "hybrid" plagiarism, a combination of cited and uncited passages. Furthermore, it discusses "mash-up" plagiarism, where information from multiple sources is used without attribution, and "aggregator" plagiarism, where the work lacks original thought despite proper citations. The essay also highlights the "404 error," involving incorrect or non-existent citations, and "re-tweet" plagiarism, where the original text's structure and wording are closely mirrored. It emphasizes the importance of proper paraphrasing and citation to avoid plagiarism, providing a comprehensive overview of the diverse ways academic integrity can be compromised.

Running Head: THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
1
The Plagiarism Spectrum
Name of the Student
Name of the Institution

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
2
The Plagiarism Spectrum
Plagiarism is one of the key issues that adversely affect the scholarly works. It is an
academic malpractice that denies an individual's credibility and integrity. Hence, practicing
plagiarism is unethical especially when a person intends to present plagiarized work and expect
excellent academic performance. Apparently, Lathrop & Foss (2015) argue that the
advancement of technology and emergence of the digital era, individuals may be practicing
plagiarism either intentionally or inadvertently without considering the repercussions of the
same. The main aim of this paper, therefore, is to reflect on some eight uncommon academic
violations.
Besides, the two common violations on scholarly work, that is Clone and CTRL+C,
there are other rare violations that individual may commit knowingly or unknowingly. One of
these violations is Find-Replace. Find-Replace is a situation where an individual changes the key
words as well as phrases on a particular scholarly work. The basic content of the source of the
academic work is however retained thus resulting to plagiarism. Secondly, unoriginal work may
arise from the remix. Remix involve the incorporation of paraphrased works derived from
several sources. The work seems original, but in actual sense, it is plagiarized (Pecorari, 2013).
Another form of plagiarism results from the recycle error. In the case of recycle, a writer
includes information from previous works but fail to provide citations. The work is therefore
considered unoriginal. Fourthly, there is the issue of hybrid. The kind of plagiarism that is seen
as hybrid results from the failure to give citations for the copied passages (Pennycook, 2012).
Unlike in recycle, here, a writer provides excellent ideas from various cited works but includes
some passages which are not cited. Fifth is the mash-up plagiarism. In Mashup plagiarism, a

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
3
writer gets information from various sources, but none of the sources are cited (Pennycook,
2012). The practice thus results to very high percentage of plagiarism.
In addition, the plagiarism spectrum also lists aggregator as another uncommon form of
plagiarism. In this case, a writer provides the sources and even gives proper citation.
Nonetheless, the work does not exhibit any form of the writer's originality. The seventh form of
plagiarism is commonly known as 404 error. The 404 error occurs when citations are given for
incorrect information or non-existing information about a given source (Clough, 2013). In this
case, Clough (2013) argue that the writer picks any source and cites anywhere in work. It is thus
obvious that there will be no correlation between the citation and the information being cited.
Finally, the re-tweet plagiarism error also occurs when one provides a citation that depicts a lot
of similarity in structure and wording as the original text.
Hybrid plagiarism was once noted in some work where some information required
citation, but it was omitted unintentionally. One way through which hybrid plagiarism can be
avoided is by providing proper paraphrasing and giving the correct citation. In an instance where
two sources agree on some point, it is necessary to provide the correct citation from both sources.
However, citing two or more sources in the single set of information must follow the correct
format depending on the referencing style recommended for that particular task.

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
4
References
Clough, P. (2013). Old and new challenges in automatic plagiarism detection. In National
Plagiarism Advisory Service, 2003.
Lathrop, A., & Foss, K. (2015). Student cheating and plagiarism in the Internet era. A wake-up
call. Libraries Unlimited, Englewood, CO 80155-6633.
Pecorari, D. (2013). Good and original: Plagiarism and patchwriting in academic second-
language writing. Journal of second language writing, 12(4), 317-345.
Pennycook, A. (2012). Borrowing Others’ Words: Text, Ownership, Memory, and Plagiarism.
Negotiating Academic Literacies: Teaching and Learning Across Languages and
Cultures, 265.

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
5

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
6

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
7

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
8

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
9

THE PLAGIARISM SPECTRUM
10