Are you plagiarizing?

Just because you're not copying someone else's work exactly as written, doesn't mean that you're not guilty of plagiarism. As writers who often rely on other sources for facts pertinent to our own news reporting, we must have an accurate understanding of exactly what is and what isn't plagiarism. Rather than relying on my own interpretation of the term plagiarism, let's look at a couple of independent sources.

The Instrument of Judicial Governance from the University of North Carolina defines plagiarism as "deliberate or reckless representation of another's words, thoughts, or ideas as one's own without attribution..." I added the bold for emphasis.

USLegal.com defines the term as follows:
"The intentional or unintentional use of another's words or ideas without acknowledging this use consitutes plagiarism..." Simply enough, right? As long as you, at some point in your article say what you've 'borrowed,' you're covered, right? Wrong.

USlegal.com goes on to say: "There are four common forms of plagiarism:

• Duplication of another author's words without quotation marks and accurate references or footnotes.
• The duplication of another author's words or phrases with footnotes or accurate references, but without quotation marks.
• The use of another author's ideas in paraphrase without accurate references or footnotes.
• Submitting a paper in which exact words are merely rearranged even though footnoted."

Again the bold is mine for emphasis of certain points. Let's go over these four forms of plagiarism, one by one. Then, I'll give four examples of published news articles reporting the same event to help understand how to follow these points in practice.

The first of these four, I think, is pretty clearly understood. Copying another person's work without crediting them is wrong and constitutes plagiarism. Few would have issue with that.

The second may be less widely known. Most might say, ok, I forgot quotation marks (or didn't know I needed them), but I correctly credited the source of the material I used, so it isn't plagiarism. Not quite, the purpose of the quotation marks is to set aside the borrowed material, so that readers know exactly what was borrowed from your cited source and what is your own creation. In the age of Internet, it may be permissible to use other forms to delineate exactly what was taken.

An indented bit of text, with a different background color, font, or size that is intentionally made to appear as though it were cut and pasted from another source, could, arguably substitute for quotation marks, so long as the source is properly attributed, for example.

The exact beginning and end of the quoted text should, however, be made unambiguously clear to the reader. Without quotation marks, the reader cannot tell what part of your writing is yours and what, exactly, is someone else's creation.

The third bullet point is where I, unfortunately, see either much ignorance, confusion or disregard for the definition of plagiarism. It is plagiarism to read an article written by someone else, and rewrite it in your own words, without fully, specifically, and properly citing that source, according to the USLegal.com definition. Reading a New York Times report that says:
"Among the more than 80 people that activist groups reported killed by rockets and bombs through the day, two were Western journalists, the veteran American war correspondent Marie Colvin, who had been working for The Sunday Times of London, and a young French photographer, Rémi Ochlik." Does not give you liberty to write in your article: "A French photographer and a Sunday Times of London reporter were killed during fighting in Syria," without directly citing the source of that specific piece of information. Furthermore, citing the NYT article once at the beginning of your piece does not give you leave to paraphrase the entire article or major sections of it, or to paraphrase it in multiple places throughout your article without further attribution. For example, on the first page of the above-referenced NYT piece, you'll find three specific references to information that the authors gleaned from one or more Reuters reports, as well as other citations for other facts and statements that they used.

Lastly, the fourth bullet of the USLegal.com definition tells us that we can't shirk our responibility to use quotation marks and specific attribution, just by rearraging the words. If some wrote "The police apprehended the suspect at 4:30 pm, on Saturday." You can't simply write "On Saturday, at 4:30 pm, police apprehended the suspect," without quotation marks and accurate references or footnotes. That still represents the original author's idea and words, not yours.

Here are examples of the same event reported by four separate sources.
1) WMUR report of a harp seal on a Hampton, New Hampshire beach published at 2:33 pm on February 19th
2) A report of the same event published at Patch.com published on February 20th
3) My own report of the event at Examiner.com published late in the day on February 19th 
4) A report from Foster's Daily Democrat published on February 21st

(Note: Go read them, but don't leave nasty comments accusing anyone of anything, please. My purpose in writing this isn't to call anybody out, but to educate based on some convenient examples that I had on hand.)

Of these four, the WMUR report was the first published. I was at the scene and have first-hand knowledge that residents attending the event contacted WMUR. From the wording of the WMUR report, it also appears that the author also contacted The New England Aquarium for additional information although they did not specify that source by name.

The second example needs a bit more scrutiny. The first paragraph, appears fine from a palgiarism perspective. There's a sentence containing two factual statements and a proper attribution to the WMUR article that I used as example #1. Note, however, that the Patch.com article says the seal "washed up" on the beach, which is a factually inaccurate assumption by the author based on the WMUR report that  the seal "was out of the water."

The first sentence of the next paragraph at Patch.com violates the second bullet point of the USLegal.com definition of plagiarism. It is a word for word copy of the statement made by WMUR without quotation marks, but properly referenced. This gives the impression that the Patch.com author created more of that sentence's wording than "the television station said." The rest of the Patch.com article's second paragraph is a combination of direct quotes and paraphrasing of the WMUR article's third paragraph. The Patch.com author has done nothing original here except to change one perfectly good WMUR sentence into a fragment, and change the source of the pronouncement of a healthy diagnosis that WMUR attributed to The New England Aquarium, to the volunteer (from the Blue Ocean Society) who never, in fact, spoke to WMUR before the WMUR article was initially published.

The first sentence of the third paragraph of the Patch.com article is lifted directly from the WMUR article's second paragraph although the Patch.com "author" changed the word "common" from WMUR's report to "not unusual" in his. He also dropped the words "when they want sleep or" from the WMUR report, otherwise copying their sentence verbatim. There is no attribution at all for the ideas or the copied words in the third paragraph of the Patch.com article. The next Patch.com "sentence," (I use the term lightly, since it is actually a sentence fragment) is another assumption by the author guessing at the emotional state of the onlookers that WMUR said were present. The remainining sentence and a half of the Patch.com article are original, linking two earlier articles by the same author on related topics (although I can't vouch for the originality of those two linked articles).

Plagiarism? According to the USLegal definition, unequivocably. Was the author aware that he was plagiarizing? Given the grammatical errors in the article, one could argue that he was unaware of his crime, which, given USLegal's "intentional or unintentional" verbiage, would make no difference in court, by the way.

The third example is one that I wrote published after the WMUR report. It however, contains much information not contained in the WMUR report, based on my personal knowledge and first-hand reporting, as I personally witnessed the events and spoke directly to the volunteer from the Blue Ocean Society who was alerted to the seal's presence by the New England Aquarium. There are no phrases or ideas lifted from the WMUR report. Paraphrased information from The New England Aquarium is properly cited. The facts in the final paragraph were written from my own knowledge, but since they may not be common knowledge to a majority of readers, in retrospect, they should have been cited from some independent source, to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

The fourth article, from Foster's Daily Democrat, was written by someone who was clearly not present at the location. It is quite possible that the author of this article was alerted to the situation by reading one of the previously published articles, but they contacted original sources, spoke to a named individual at The New England Aquarium extensively as well as the Blue Ocean Society volunteer. Although this article uses sources common to other articles, the New England Aquarium and Patty Adell, it is clearly original. The Foster's reporter may (or may not) have gotten the idea for the story from another published source, but he did his own reporting and did not simply rehash any existing articles that he may have read. 

You Don't Have to be On the Scene to Write About It

These examples consist two articles created by people involved directly at the time the reported event was occurring (one at the scene, one by telephone), and two created by people who apparently learned of the event afterward. You don't have to be at the scene to write about an event, but you do have to do more than repeat what someone else has already written, whether or not you paraphrase their exact words - even if you cite your source.

If you create even a properly attributed article based on other published sources and every sentence refers to another source, then, quite aside from issues of palgiarism, you should ask yourself exactly what you are bringing to the table. What are you offering the reader?

It might be a unique analysis of the events, a comparison of the event's coverage by several different sources, additional information not contained in previous reports, a more complete report than is found elsewhere by amalgamating information from a variety of sources, or anything else that makes your article uniquely your own and of unique value to the reader rather than a simple rewrite of someone else's work. Even if your editor allows simple rewrites to slide by, it's not your work and you have no business publishing it to steal traffic from the original source.

When to use your prior articles as primary source material

I've covered the difference between primary and secondary sources in previous posts and told you that you should always strive to use a primary source rather than someone else's reporting of that source material. Obviously, an original interview that you conduct is a primary source. Don't overlook that fact if you later write on a similar topic. You can cite the expert you interviewed with a link back to that interview as a primary source for future articles.

This is an exception to the rule. Ordinarily, I think linking back to one of your articles as a source of factual information for a news report is not a good idea if the information you're citing was originally drawn from another source. In other words, many articles (especially news articles) are themselves secondary or even tertiary sources.

If your previous article said, "The FBI, on their website, are asking for the public's aid in locating Whitey Bolger." That's a secondary source with the FBI website being the primary source. If you wrote "ABC News reported that the FBI Director asked for the public's help..." Your article becomes a tertiary source, ABC News is the secondary source for the primary source which was the FBI Director himself. These kinds of chain references where the reader who wishes to check your source has to go through several links to get to the source are damaging to the writer's credibility, in my opinion, and should be avoided.

However, articles in which you personally conducted the interview and are bearing witness to what the relevent source said to you, are fair primary source references. There is no extra link in the chain for the reader to chase down because you've done the original investigation and reporting and these articles can credibly be used as primary source references for future articles.

Note that this is for news source references. If you include links to other articles you've written as additional background material, further reading, related topics, or also of interest pieces, that's a separate thing altogether and I don't take issue with that at all.

Reporting on 'hints and allegations'

Ideally, every news reporter would adopt a Joe Friday approach, "All we know are the facts, ma'am." There's a place for commentary and opinion, but news reporting isn't that place. A well-written news article should present the facts and let the reader form their own opinions. Unfortunately, in my opinion, that doesn't happen much anymore.

Separating fact from opinion in news reports

There are certain instances where a writer must be especially careful about blurring facts and opinions, whether the opinions belong to her or to someone else. Generally, those instances involve cases where what is said could be damaging to someone's (or some company's) reputation. We can write about allegations, accusations, convictions and indictments as facts, but not the underlying actions unless we were personally witness to them and would be willing to testify to them under oath in a court of law. For example, "When I arrived on the scene, the fight was still in progress and Joe Smith was alternately shoving and being shoved by Sam Jones." I saw it, I would attest to it under oath, I can write it.
However, if, when I arrived, Joe and Sam were in handcuffs, all five people I asked said they saw the two shoving each other and described the altercation in detail, a police officer told me they were being arrested for disorderly conduct, public drunkenness and assault, and I heard Jones yell out, "Ness time I'll do more 'n jess shove you ta th' groun'," just before he vomitted onto the side of the police cruiser. I can not write a factual news article stating that Smith and Jones were shoving each other, that they were drunk, or anything about their specific actions (other than saying that Jones yelled out whatever I heard him yell).
I can write something like the following:

On Friday evening at approximately 11:45 p.m., the Rutland City Police arrested Joe Smith and Sam Jones outside of Notorious Nightclub on Main Street. The arresting officer, Detective Joe Friday, said the pair were being arrested for disorderly conduct, public drunkeness and assault.

Mike Jones, who said he was the brother of one of the accused, said "Sam wasn't doing nothing. Joe just walked up and hit him over the head with a beer bottle. Sam just turned around and pushed him away, you know, acting in self-defense." Four other bystanders, however, claimed to have seen Jones spit in Smith's face immediately prior to the altercation.

Bartenders could not say how many drinks were served to the pair prior to the trouble in the parking lot. Officers at the scene would not comment on the results of a breathalyzer test administered to Smith and Jones. 

John Baptiste, who was behind the bar at the time said that Jones had been asked to leave the premises on several previous occasions, but could not say why.

In this example, I am not reporting as fact anything I didn't see. Instead I am reporting that an officer told me this, four bystanders (whose names and phone numbers I jotted down for my file) told me that, and Mike Jones told me something else. In this case, I could testify that these people told me those things, but I can't say for certain whether any of what they said is actually true or not. I did not personally, in my article, accuse anyone of anything or make assumptions about anyne's guilt or innocence.

It would be entirely wrong to write: On Friday evening at approximately 11:45 p.m., Joe Smith and Sam Jones were carted away in handcuffs after brawling in the parking lot of Notorious Nightclub on Main Street. Jones, a known trouble-maker, started the fight by spitting in Smith's face. Smith retaliated by hitting the larger man in the head with a beer bottle, but was shoved to the ground and could have been in for much worse if police had not arrived to break up the fight. While the majority of onlookers provided consistent descriptions of the fight, Jones' brother Mike seemed to leave out key pieces of the story to protect his big brother. Both men were drunk when they left the club and even the bartenders lost track of how much alcohol the men had been served that evening. Notorious Nightclub lives up to its name as events like those of last night seem to happen on a regular basis there. Perhaps, if the hired help were trained well enough to recognize when someone has had enough to drink, they could keep their patrons out of jail.

In the latter example, I have personally accused two men, Smith and Jones, of specific criminal actions. I have make actionable statements against the management and staff of Notorious Nightclub, accused Mike Jones of lying, and personally accused Smith and Jones of being drunk. Both I and my publisher could be sued over each of these statements, since they are all based on hearsay or unsubstantiated assumptions and damaging to someone's reputation. I don't know if the two men were drunk, if Mike Jones was lying, or if the four other bystanders were cousins of Smith and were lying on his behalf. Any of them might have been mistaken. I have one bartender's assertion that Jones had been removed from Notorious on previous occasions, but have personally interpreted that by calling Jones a known trouble-maker, another potentially actionable allegation on my part. While I might be able to successfully defend against civil suits against some of these claims, if the results of the breathalyzer tests were admitted and showed the men over the legal limit, for example, my allegation of them being drunk might get dismissed, but some are indefensible - was Mike Jones lying or simply mistaken?

Let's assume several weeks go by. Jones died from a subdural hematoma the next day, Smith is going on trial for murder. I can say that Smith has been arraigned for murder, he is being tried for murder, he has been accused of murder by the prosecutor, but I cannot call him a murderer, or say that he killed Jones. I can say that the coroner stated that the autopsy revealed the cause of death was a blow to the head consistent with being struck by a beer bottle, as Smith was alleged to have done two days prior to the Jones' death.

If Smith is convicted of murder, I still cannot call him a murderer with absolute impunity. I can say he has been convicted of murder, found guilty of murder, or is serving a life sentence for murder, but if the conviction were overturned later, my calling him a murderer outright would be proven to be incorrect.

In short, a factual news article can report allegations or statements made by others who are cited in the text, but should never make claims, accusations, or assumptions about events to which the writer was not personally a witness.

Although personal allegations against individuals are the most common instances where this comes into play, it also applies in other areas. I can't say for sure, for example whether cell phones cause brain tumors or not. I can say that 17 independent studies have found no evidence that cell phones cause brain tumors or that Mike Jones, brother of Sam Jones who was  originally thought to have died of a subdural hematoma after being struck with a beer bottle, now claims that his brother's death was caused by a tumor triggered by his cellphone. "He never had no tumor before he got a cell phone," Jones shouted from the courthouse steps over the protests of his attorney.

The writer should let the reader know the source of every bit of information in the article that isn't widely known public knowledge. I don't need to provide a source for information like, "the President of the United States was born in Hawaii." If I wrote, however, "Hawaii remains the President's favorite vaction spot," I'd need to cite a source such as "he told Bill O'Reilly on The O'Reilly Show last night."

Related blog post: Interviews

I just wanted to drop a quick note here that I have another blog called "Interviews with Experts." It is mainly dedicated to collecting all the interviews I have done with experts on various topics, but it also includes posts which discuss issues that have come up in the course of conducting interviews and my experiences around the interviews themselves. Since interviews are a key news data gathering tool, I am mentioning it here for those that are interested, but I'm generally not going to cross-post every entry from there to here.

Establishing credibility part II: Commentary

Even commentary pieces must be built on a firm foundation of unassailable facts. To convince a reader that your opinion has merit, you must have a higher amount of stored credibility because you are risking drawing down on it with every subjective or opinionated statement you make. Your credibility is taxed in direct proportion to the degree of outlandishness that each such statement contains.

For example, each of the following statements puts more of a strain on the author's credibility because of the increasing deviation from mainstream opinion. 1) We should subject anyone coming into the United States from a country of special concern to a more thorough search when boarding an airplane. 2) We should apply a more thorough search to anyone who fits the physical and behavioral profile of previously identified members of a terrorist group. 3) We should subject anyone of Arabian descent to an extended search. 4) We should deny U.S. entry to all foreigners. 5) We should nuke 'em all.

Each of those statements requires the writer to make a much stronger case built on a foundation of facts strong enough to support the authors' opinion, until you get to a statement like the fifth one that is entirely unsupportable and transforms the commentary article into a rant regardless of how much credibility the author has banked with the rest of the article. Carl Sagan may have said it best when he said "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." That applies not only to scientific endeavors, but also to news commentary.

Readers understand that news commentary contains subjective statements based on the author's opinion. Good commentary leads a reader down a logical path. At first, the path should seem like familiar territory to the reader. They should feel as if they are walking on a firm grounding of familiar facts. The author can place plausible opinions in among the facts, like a will-o-wisp drawing the unwary reader deeper and deeper into the writer's forest of logic. The best commentary will take a reader to an unfamiliar destination, sympathizing with the commentary writer's opinion, without them ever realizing they left their old familiar path.

What does localization mean?

Some web news publishers, like Examiner.com and some assignments at the Yahoo! Contributor Network ask news writers to contribute localized news stories. If news happens in your home town, that's easy, but if you happen to live in a little backwater town where the biggest news is that the only gas station in town ran out of premium gasoline for three hours on Thursday, then it can be a challenge for those unfamiliar with other ways to localize news content.

Localization simply means to make the story particularly meaningful to readers in your community. Depending upon the assignment or Examiner title you have, that may be your city, county, state or even multi-state region. There are a myriad of ways to accomplish this task for almost any major national or international news story.

A simple way to add a local angle to a national news story is to ask yourself a series of questions:

Could it happen here? Why or why not?

How does it affect my community? This one is terribly broad - thinking just about the tsunami in Japan, it could include such topics as: Will any radiation reach us here? Is imported Japanese food safe to eat? Has business at a local Japanese restaurant dropped? Will it take longer to get the new iPad (due to lack of Japanese made semiconductors)? Will the local Nissan dealer/factory face supply issues?

Are any individuals in my community particularly affected? People with family in the affected area, exchange students from the area, local volunteers going to help, someone just returned a day before the event and avoided near disaster, someone who had been planning a future visit

Is there a local expert who can help my readers understand the issue? Professors at a local college with particular expertise about the event or local rescue workers/firemen/ police/ doctors talking about the nature of rescue efforts in the affected area, for example

Have local officials made any statements about the event? Are we prepared? Does this affect the future of nuclear power in our state? Are steps being taken to address potential safety issues? Did the local congressman express condolences?

Do I have any relevant personal experience related to this event? Has anything from your past given you special insight into the event? For example, "Running a small family farm in Biloxi, Miss., we have experienced any number of weather-related or other events that have hurt my yield, but the thought of our spinach, cows, or the very ground itself being contaminated with radiation from a nuclear plant dozens of miles away..."

Even localized sstories about national or global news events require good research on the original event. You should include early on in the article all the relevant facts about the event (from properly cited original sources as I mentioned yesterday) since this is the foundation upon which you'll build the local part of the story. In addition, you'll likely have research at the local level, finding and interviewing someone, local news broadcasts, or newspapers. Even off-line sources need to be cited.

The plus side of writing localized content is that it is much more likely to be a unique take on an event about which many, many articles have already been written. The down side is that it may not appeal to an audience as broad as a national news item without localization. This is not always the case, however. Sometimes, particularly compelling local stories can find a national audience.

In any case, always pay attention to the guidelines, ground rules, and other guidance provided by the publisher for whom the work is intended with regard to localization.