Written by Matt Perman
There are two factors that, taken together, make plagiarism a danger for those in the Christian ministry. First, those engaged in pastoring and teaching generally love to learn and share what they have learned with others. This is obviously a very good thing. But, second, the guidelines for giving proper credit to those we have learned from are not always clear. Hence, there is a danger that the good desire to share and spread truth will sometimes be carried out, unknowingly, through the untruthful means of plagiarism.
Defining Plagiarism
The essence of plagiarism is to give the impression that the ideas or words of another person are actually your own. This can be done intentionally (in which case it is outright theft) or unintentionally—but either way it is wrong.
The 10th edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary formally defines the term “plagiarize” from three different angles:
- “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own”
- to “use (a created production) without crediting the source”
- “to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source”
In a nutshell, you have committed plagiarism whenever you use another’s ideas or words without crediting or acknowledging the source.
Committing Plagiarism
We can spell this definition out more concretely. There are basically three ways in which plagiarism can be committed:
1. Quoting someone else word for word, but not crediting them as the source.
2. Paraphrasing another’s words without acknowledging the author whose words you are restating. In other words, if you do not quote the person verbatim, but instead just change a few words and do not give credit, you have committed plagiarism.
3. Using the ideas of another without acknowledging their source. Hence, even if you state another person’s ideas entirely in your own words, you still must credit them as the source of the ideas. The only exception is when the idea is well known and has become common knowledge. For example, if I state that “it is 93 million miles to the sun,” I do not need to cite a source. It is common knowledge.
