Link-age

So this plagiarism issues is certainly interesting. It's fun to look at what constitutes credit on the world of the internet, as certain things , links, to be precise, just won't work in your standard term paper.

It seems most bloggers like the "this" method. The "This Method" is the term I've decided upon for a paragraph of text, with the link as the word "this," as in "so-n-so says in this post...."

Pretend that "this" is a link, ok? Bear with me here.

In the context of a blog, simply linking to something doesn't equal plagiarism. The blogger hasn't reproduced any of the material on their own blog/server/etc, and most will generally say something along the lines of "check out this link to AwesomeSite.com at www.awesomesite.com" which puts credit on someone else.


Some people, of course, like to be a little more descriptive than Mr. Awesome Site Linker, and like to include a chunk of the text in the blog post, somewhere around the accompanying link. Usually, it's a paragraph, with "read more of this at so-n-so's blog" which once again places credit where credit is due. Posts that simply copy text, and never credit, are plagiarism, but difficulty in calling it plagiarism comes in giving credit to "insert name here" and never linking. In traditional citation, the writer gives all the information the reader needs to access the sources from which the information was drawn. The author, the publisher, etc. The internet equivalent of giving someone all the information they need to read for themselves is a link.

Copying a paragraph of the text linked to, and posting it (along with appropriate credit, of course) is even beneficial to the original writer. When a possible reader reads that little snippet, they are getting a preview of it, and may be more inclined to click on the link, thus, the original writer gets a bit of advertising.

In a standard college essay, it seems the only good way to achieve the convenience of linking would be to include copies of all the sources with the essay, and reference them with something like headers or Post-It-Notes. Linking is the same as the citation pages on an essay, just instant.

All in all, as long as you go out of your way to credit, and credit again, avoid copying entire passages, and link/cite correctly, plagiarism shouldn't be an issue.

Although, it may be fun to watch someone walk the line and argue it...