Is changing some words plagiarism?

Question

I'm looking for a clear, definitive answer to the following question: Is taking someone else's writing, and changing some of the words, inherently plagiarism?

I find resources that describe plagiarism are usually a bit vague around this issue. For example, one commonly-quoted book says this (Pechenik, 2001, p. 10):

Don’t plagiarize. Express your own thoughts in your own words... Note, too, that simply changing a few words here and there, or changing the order of a few words in a sentence or paragraph, is still plagiarism. Plagiarism is one of the most serious crimes in academia.

Or this likewise from the IEEE Publications: Identifying Plagiarism page:

... we should be able to agree that changing only a few words or phrases or only rearranging the original sentence order of another author's work will be defined as plagiarism.

Now, the fact that these sources each refer to changing or moving "a few words" leaves open the question of whether changing or moving more words, or many words, would possibly be not-plagiarism. Is there any threshold at which changing words becomes not-plagiarism? Possibly all of them?

The practical concern I have is that recently I've gotten a high frequency of students I've caught for plagiarizing in my courses (around half) saying something like, "Ah yes, when I took that file I didn't change enough of the words because I was rushed for time. I'm sorry, next time I'll change more of the words."

Ultimately I'm wondering if the best response to that is, "That would still be plagiarism [even if you changed all of the words]!", or if the response needs to be something different and more complex. (I find that for such students with possible language problems, more complicated responses are likely to be disregarded, so I'm looking for a minimalist communication in these situations.)

The best answer will not go into discussions of practical issues of detecting plagiarism. A reference to some authoritative source on this issue would be a value-add.

It may be helpful to note that "plagiarism" is emphasized here because it's central to my institutions' (and others') academic integrity definitions and enforcement mechanisms. In our case, "Copying another person’s actual words or images..." is the primary (but not the only) example of what counts as plagiarism.

Answer 1

Is taking someone else's writing, and changing some of the words, inherently plagiarism?

The most concise, clear answer I can think of is the following: Disallowing plagiarism is about protecting ideas, not words; however, the way something is written is often a (protected) idea. The writing's structure and organization, the details that are included or excluded, the transitions, the figures, the references -- all of this may be protected intellectual property, and none of this is addressed by simply substituting some words for others.

Hence, students are wrong when they believe that all they have to do is "change a few of the words" -- even if one does not steal the words, they are still stealing the writing, which is much more than just word choice. The most egregious form of this is when someone copies an entire document and then goes through line by line making trivial changes to the wording. This is absolutely plagiarism: using different words does not change the fact that they are still stealing the writing. (On the other hand, detecting plagiarism is much harder when these substitutions are made...and many students honestly believe that plagiarism is defined by what TurnItIn can detect).

So I'd love to say the answer to your question is an unambiguous "yes" -- but consider this sentence:

Elementary particles comprise quarks, leptons, and bosons.

Many students mistakenly believe that they need to make some trivial modification to this sentence to avoid plagiarism. But this sentence contains no "novel ideas" -- certainly not in the content, but not really in the writing either; there are only so many reasonable ways in which one can state this fact. Indeed, it is likely others have published this exact sentence before. Hence, taking this sentence without attribution (with or without having changed some of the words) would probably not be inherently plagiarism. But this is a slippery and ill-defined slope: while this seven-word sentence is probably not complex enough for "plagiarism" to be possible, other sentences (particularly longer ones) certainly are.

Finally, we should note that schoolwork presents some unique challenges for avoiding plagiarism. In most nonfiction work, there are four types of information: (1) well-established facts, (2) primary sources, (3) secondary sources, and (4) our novel contribution. Usually, an essay will have most or all of these -- #4 is the reason for writing the essay at all, #1 and #2 are important because our work doesn't exist in a vacuum, and occasionally #3 is helpful. Many schoolwork assignments, however, only have #3 -- there is already some writing in a secondary source that single-handedly meets our requirements. And so the student's job is just to rewrite the existing essay but somehow to make major enough changes so that it becomes original work. This is a subtle distinction that doesn't have much in common with the real world -- no wonder students are confused.

Answer 2

Students sometimes believe or claim to believe that plagiarism is some highly technical, perplexing concept. While it is important to clarify what plagiarism is and is not to the student, in an actual discussion with a student who believes that they should have "changed more words", I find it helpful to start from an ethical principle that the student will find it much more difficult to misunderstand or claim to misunderstand, namely to give credit where credit is due.

Here is a concrete suggestion. One can get the conversation going by asking whether the student found it helpful to have the relevant passage as a starting point. Make the distinction between using general ideas found in some text and using an actual passage in some book or article as a starting point for one's own writing. This way of putting it makes the number of words they changed irrelevant. Even if they change every single word, the point is whether or not the specific writing in the source passage was substantially used in the writing process, whatever the end result of this process.

If they answer negatively, you can express skepticism about their answer, since they did in fact actively choose to use it as a starting point for their own writing. If they did find the work that the author of the original passage helpful in composing their own writing, you can ask them whether they believe that the original author is due some credit for that. Whatever they answer, explain that owe some credit to the original author. Then you can get into a discussion of what plagiarism is or is not, but I believe that grounding it in a familiar ethical principle will help. (Confession: I myself find it useful to think in terms of fair vs. unfair use instead of plagiarism vs. not plagiarism, and to use the term "plagiarism" primarily when ill intent is clear.)

Another approach if they say that they will "change more words" next time is to paraphrase this back to them as: I will change more words so that I can avoid citing source X. Then ask them why they wish to avoid citing source X.

If you want to wax philosophical, you can then explain that science only works as a cumulative enterprise which encourages people to stand on the shoulders of giants and ordinary mortals alike. This cannot work unless it is a win–win situation for the people involved. Other people's work allows you to see further and write better, and conversely, they benefit from having their share in your work acknowledged.

(The point raised by Massimo Ortolano is also important to get across to the student.)

Edit: the other answers focus on using other people's ideas, which is justified but potentially a bit nebulous. You can also choose to focus on using other people's work instead, which I find a bit more concrete in this case: they are building on the work that some other person has already put into composing the passage in question.

Answer 3

The clear, definitive answer to your question

Is taking someone else's writing, and changing some of the words, inherently plagiarism?

Is YES, and you need to go no further than a dictionary.

the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

The moment your students (or anyone, for that matter) tries to solve a writing task by looking for what someone else has written and then trying to include it in their work as their own, it becomes plagiarism no matter how many words they can change; it's the action of putting/trying to put someone else's work into theirs what constitutes it.

The thing is, the rest of the body of your question shifts it to both "how can I tell my students/make them understand that what they do is plagiarism?" and "am I wrong by assuming that what my students are doing is plagiarism?".

The latter is easier to answer: no, you're not wrong. The former, though, is a bit trickier.

Your students already believe that plagiarism is about what can be detected as such, and not what they're intending to do. This probably isn't on purpose - they might not be "evil" students, merely misled. You need to make them understand that their offense is not "not changing enough words", it is "thinking of taking the writing of someone else without proper acknowledgment".

Maybe you can make it clear by establishing it with a simple "do/don't" rule:

DO: write your own thoughts and conclusions, and use citations from other authors or written material to support them.

DON'T: take the writing of other authors/material and put it in your work as yours, neither by copying it as is nor by changing or paraphrasing it.

Answer 4

Looking at this definition of Oxford University, plagiarism is using other people's ideas without acknowledging them. Under this definition, even if you were to change all the words, or rewriting the whole thing in your own words, you would still commit plagiarism, as long as you don't give credit to the original source where you took the idea from.

Answer 5

Changing a few words is the worst form of plagiarism. It's basically proof the student knew it was wrong and is trying to hide it (I saw it most often with students copying from a friend's assignment, but same idea). "I'm sorry I didn't change more words" is really shorthand for "I know this class doesn't matter and you don't care. Let me go and I'll cheat better next time so you can pretend everything is fine".

There are two reasons we care about plagiarism. One is so our graduates don't do it. A few years ago an influencer (Rachel Hollis) posted "still...I RISE" without saying it was from Maya Angelou's "And still I rise". She got ripped a new one and never recovered. And she changed almost half of it! If you have to write an original article and start by rewriting someone else's, people go nuts. Here's one about a fired student reporter from my Alma Mater "Tibbs ran an editorial that was about to be published through a plagiarism checker: 71 percent." Strangely, the article doesn't mention whether 29% changes were enough -- apparently copying with any number of changes is fireable plagiarism. Huh.

The other reason we care about plagiarism is that the assignments are meant to show what you know. Being able to turn it into your own words is the proof you understood something. If you just use an internet search and a thesaurus (also on the internet), that proves nothing, so is worth 0 points, and is also lying. "I wrote this" means you thought of all the words.

For dealing with it, one fun thing is to talk to other students. I've found that most fully understand doing your own work vs. copying. And they get seriously angry if they think someone is getting away with messing up the curve and the school's reputation by cheating. Getting a faceful of "tell me you're not going to fall for their bullsh*t and let them pass" may be helpful. For a real earful, also tell the student "but they changed a lot of the words".

Answer 6

Yes, this is a form of plagiarism called close copying.

Answer 7

I don't think there can be a clear definition. The point is whether "changing a few words here and there" meets the learning objectives of the assignment. If not, then it is trying to pass off the the content of the passage that does meet the learning objectives as being their own work and ought to be viewed as plagiarism.

Using a thesaurus or grammar checker to paraphrase the passage probably does not demonstrate any understanding of the topic in addition to the choice of passage. So being able to choose a suitable passage is all that the student deserves marks for (which probably isn't very much). What value have they added by paraphrasing? What understanding have they demonstrated?

Answer 8

Regardless of whether it is plagiarism, think about the context: if a student does this in an assessment then all they are demonstrating is the ability to use a thesaurus. Assuming the goal is not to assess the student's ability to use a thesaurus, any coursework demonstrating only that ability deserves a very low mark.

This follows regardless of whether you call it "plagiarism". That matters if you are deciding whether to put the student through the institution's procedure for academic misconduct. I would do this if the student failed to cite the source they had mangled, and not if they had cited it properly. But either way, "work" done this way gets a very low mark because it deserves one.

What I tell students is this:

The ideas are supposed to go from the textbook (or whatever other source) into your head, and from your head into your coursework. If the ideas are going straight from the textbook into your coursework, without going via your head, then you are missing the point.

The problem is not that the work they submitted is "too similar" to the source material, it's that the process by which they are working does not and cannot lead to useful, meaningful learning. That is true whether or not the process is called "plagiarism", so I'll leave that question to the philosophers.

Answer 9

First, at the end of the day, in a course setting, plagiarism—or the acceptable level thereof—is what the professor decides it to be.

But I think that instead of concentrating on the amount of words changed, the key point that needs to be addressed with the students is another: if you have to read and change the words to write your essay, it means that you didn't understand the concepts enough to make use of them and, consequently, to pass the exam.

Answer 10

The easiest thing to tell your students is this:

If you use someone else's work, cite them. If you don't, you're committing plagiarism.

When this issue comes up in undergraduate work, it almost inevitably comes down to intellectual laziness. The student in not focused on school; s'he wants to slide through to a passing grade with minimal thought and effort, because s'he has other concerns: social life and dating, activism, emotional issues or anxiety, etc. These other concerns are natural and important — we all go through a lot of crap in that age-range — but part of the job is encouraging students to learn focus and balance. You're not doing them any favors by being overly lenient.

If I were in your shoes, I'd look them in the eye and tell them that I understand (because I really do), but that the behavior isn't acceptable. They need to step up. I'd give them a choice between a zero on the assignment, or a chance to rewrite the paper in a way that convinces me they understand the material. And I'd let them know I'd be reading the revised paper extra carefully. If you can find a way to break the myopic fixation on grades and get them to focus on acquiring knowledge, this problem should solve itself.

Answer 11

Types of Plagiarism

It often helps to break down plagiarism into different types. That's what Harvard does, for example, breaking it down into six kinds. A lot of other universities use the same or similar categories. The beginning of the course is the best time to (re-)explain what plagiarism is (ideally quoting your school's own policies) to hopefully prevent it before it happens.

If a student points out they didn't use the exact same words as the original author, you can point out that they are referring to only a single type of plagiarism (usually called verbatim plagiarism). The type of plagiarism you're seeing where they "didn't change enough words" is called either inadequate paraphrase (the wording is too similar) or uncited paraphrase (paraphrased without citation), or both.

The key is that it's not plagiarism if they paraphrased completely (changing enough of the words and wording) and cited their source. And if they did both but they weren't allowed to consult with sources, that's a violation of academic integrity (but not plagiarism).

Answer 12

The key concept of plagiarism is presenting someone else's work as your own. Deception is central to it. If you copy a passage verbatim, that's not plagiarism if you openly declare it to be a quote. It might be copyright violation, and handing in a paper that consists of nothing but direct quotes is unlikely to receive much credit, but it's not plagiarism.

Where it gets confusing is that if you're a student, obviously you're not doing your own primary research. If you write that most of Napoleon's troops in the Russian invasion died, then (unless you're in a really advance program, maybe) nobody's going to come away thinking that you pored through historical record calculating how many the initial and final troop numbers were. Obviously, you looked up someone else's work. So using general facts from other people isn't deceptive (but that doesn't mean you shouldn't cite them!).

Using other people's wording, on the other hand, is deceptive. And "using" doesn't mean just copying verbatim, it also means taking that wording as a basis. Changing someone's words around is different from writing something de novo, and presenting the former as the latter is deceptive. Taking the dailies from a movie and editing them into a new cut doesn't make you a director. That's not a perfect analogy, though, because there's a clear line between actually shooting scenes versus using someone else's scenes (and, actually, re-editing a movie is a creative act, it just doesn't constitute "making a movie"), but there isn't such a bright line between "moving someone's words around" and "writing something new".

As to the language issue, while you should make accommodations for language difficulties, ultimately this is your student's responsibility. It's your student's responsibility to learn what plagiarism is, failing that it's their responsibility to learn enough English to understand an explanation of what plagiarism is, and failing that it's their responsibility to find someone who can translate the explanation. It's not acceptable that "more complicated responses are likely to be disregarded", and if they have such a cavalier attitude towards core academic concepts such as plagiarism, they have to live with the consequences. They don't get to dodge disciplinary repercussions just because "this is hard to read".

Answer 13

Yes.

As a student, many institutions provide access to plagiarism checkers, which highlight text that may be dubious.

I used a small paperback version called APA: the Easy Way, my father had once shown me a similar compact Chicago Style Manual.

Here is a link to Worldcat's list of libraries around Washington DC that have a copy of the first one:

https://www.worldcat.org/title/apa-the-easy-way/oclc/1183823482&referer=brief_results

These work, but you need to read and refer to them.

As a teacher, see if your institution offers a plagiarism checker (turnitin, for example https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG9mtsMkQaDDq3PSxa5zMEA). These allow you to show students exactly how to check themselves and are worth some class time to teach them what's expected, what's accepted, and what isn't.

They also lighten the load for submissions, grading and (in the case of the one I mentioned above) designing assessments.

Answer 14

It is not a question of proportion, or how many words: plagiarism is a qualitative assessment. It is largely a question is claiming as own the idea of someone else.

Clearly direct copying without attribution is plagiarism, but consider the following examples.

During a final exam, two students Charlie and Bob make the same sequence of conceptual errors on a question where they are asked to evaluate the ground state energy of a molecule (for instance). One or both of Charlie and Bob could be guilty of plagiarism even if the texts explaining the calculations are largely different.

As another example, suppose Bob somehow accesses the work in progress of Charlie, and decides to redo this work on his own without acknowledging the source of the work as Charlie’s. Even if Bob’s paper is significantly different in language and structure from Charlie’s, Bob can still be accused of plagiarism.

In the examples above, one can argue that the ideas were improperly claimed to be that of one person (say Bob) whereas in fact they are Charlie’s idea.

Answer 15

From my experience, this is taught by high school teachers because they, themselves, do not understand plagiarism; at least, in the US. I wouldn't blame the students as they were never taught what any of this means: they were taught they have to produce the work required, and if they don't produce the work required, they cannot continue and will fail the class and are not given any sort of out or alternative path.

This is a version of Goodhart's Law ("When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure") in effect; so many words are required in that assignment, where they come from doesn't really matter. On top of this, they are taught that referencing anybody's work (while simultaneously teaching them how to cite work and what citing means) is wrong: if you cite too many works, teachers will happily shave points off your grade as if you had done something wrong.

Sometimes an argument is complex and requires citing a lot of previous work, and all your core contribution is providing the glue for a bunch of cites. In science, this could be the form of a meta-study and all you did was pull your conclusions out of a wider body of work that no single cited paper represents, and it's entirely possible your paper just concludes that multiple papers agree and reinforce each other and finding that out was your contribution to science because no one else ever wrote this.

Citing other people's work is not plagiarism, citing other people's work and paraphrasing it (without changing the meaning) is not plagiarism. Copying it verbatim without cite is plagiarism, paraphrasing without citing and without adding anything meaningful to the new version is plagiarism. This is commonly not taught to students, so don't blame them, just try to teach them.

Answer 16

To answer the titular question: absolutely yes.

Now when it is dealt with, the bigger issue at hand is that students don't understand your expectations and the reasoning behind them.

Make sure they understand what materials they are supposed to use for their assignments, how and why. Similar to how students doubted the need to not use the calculator for arithmetic in school, they now might be doubting the need to calculate something else by hand when Wolfram or Maple exist. To the similar tune, if they looked it up online and there is the exact solution to their problem, why not just use it? Are they to pretend they never saw it?

To me, the perfect approach is when they either already know from your material or find in someone else's work the approximation to an answer and have to fill in the gaps, and if the problem is purely technical, doing calculations by hand is helpful but only if they are your focus as a teacher, and some people struggle more than others with those; you might need to consider accommodating them as well. If taking prior work is fine by you long as the proper attribution is given (after all, someone has to teach students to work with literature!), state that explicitly. Unfortunately, school focuses on "no cheating/copying" in a way that leads students to the "just don't get caught" mentality you seek to get rid of.

So meet the students where they are, consider what skills you deem important for them to develop, and sit down with them so that they explain their solutions to you.

As an exercise, you might even ask them to explain some relatively trivial fact so that they know the difference between common knowledge, where the attribution is not needed, and deriving works.

Answer 17

Let's look at from a different perspective. What would it look like to not plagiarise a source. You would discuss how the ideas and information from the source applies to your specific problem (or topic). So at the very least you synthesise the source with your own essay topic. This might involve a bit of paraphrasing (or quotation in even less cases) but only in so far as you explain the ideas in order to then relate them to your own.

Of course there are cases where you need factual information, in which case a simple quotation may be best. At university level that should not earn many marks though (only demonstrating the skill to summarise)