Is it plagiarism?

Fortunately, incidences of plagiarism don’t really pop up much on the Young Writers Society. When they do, it’s usually just a misunderstanding. For example, new members frequently confuse the Lyrics section as a place to post the lyrics of your favorite songs (as opposed to lyrics you write). As long as someone isn’t pretending to write something they didn’t, it’s not plagiarism. However, that still doesn’t mean it’s right. Even if it’s not plagiarism, it can still be a violation of copyright.

Every now and then though, I do get an e-mail from a writer saying someone on YWS has plagiarized their work. In the five years YWS has been operating, this has happened only three times. Each time, I complied with the author, but two of those instances weren’t plagiarism.

The first was a case where the YWS member copied a bunch of dictionary terms from another site. It was pretty clear where he copied them from, and the “author” said this was plagiarism. But, as that author merely copied those terms from a dictionary, that wasn’t plagiarism. Plagiarism is when you copy someone else’s original idea. Yet, even though it wasn’t plagiarism, the YWS member did violate the author’s copyright. That’s because it was pretty clear he copied them directly from the author, who in turn did copy them from the dictionary but still spent the time to group the particular terms together.

The second was a case where the YWS member copied a phrase. It was a short phrase (three words long), but very unique. In fact, the only two search results for it on Google were the poem written by the YWS member and the poem written by the author. That (along with a few other things) made it clear that the YWS member definitely copied it from the author. However, even though the phrase was original and unique, it wasn’t plagiarism. That’s because you can’t copyright short phrases to begin with. And since you can never copyright short phrases, you can’t ever commit plagiarism by copying a short phrase.

In the end, plagiarism can get confusing when you get into the details. But here’s a good rule of thumb: if you even have to ask yourself the question “Am I plagiarizing?”, then don’t do it. And if you ever have a question, use the “Contact Us” form on YWS (you’ll find it under the “About” link).