By CHRISTOPHER SCANLAN
Reporting, Writing & Editing Group Leader

THE FIRST PLAGIARISTS STOLE not words but human beings. Using a net, called a "plaga" in Latin, these were thieves, kidnappers who made off with another's child. Those origins, outlined in the Oxford English Dictionary, have vanished with time and today, plagiarism means taking someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Of course, the plagiarist’s victims may not see much of a distinction between the old definition and the current one.

Like news, plagiarism incidents seem to come in cycles. This summer, journalistic misappropriation tripped up Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, who was suspended for using, without attribution, material about the signers of the Declaration of Independence widely circulated on the Internet and treated by other writers. An editor’s note in The New York Times took to task an obituary written by Douglas Martin, that echoed passages published earlier in The Times of London.

The Information Age has made it easier than ever to plagiarize. The Internet provides an ocean of prose while computers furnish a handy net. Before computers and scanners, you had to copy someone's words, by hand or with a typewriter. Now you can lift text verbatim by using the copy and paste functions of your word-processing software. But someone still has to throw the net and that’s where journalism tradition comes in. There’s nothing new about reporters lifting from the clips -- their own or somebody else’s.

But the technology that makes the job easier does the same for detection, as well as spreading the news about the offense.

As a profession, journalism has not provided writers and editors with specific guidelines and standards they need to avoid plagiarism. In its Code of Ethics, the Society of Professional Journalists says only, "Never plagiarize."

In 1995, Trudy Lieberman produced a careful study of plagiarism incidents for Columbia Journalism Review. In it, Lieberman blamed "the profession's inability to define exactly" what constitutes plagiarism. She also indicted "an evolving journalistic culture that has come to rely heavily on borrowing and quoting from other publications as a substitute for original research. Reporters also tend to use the same sources, who offer the same pithy quote or put the same spin on an issue."

There’s another word for this: laziness. Confronted with someone else's words, well-written or containing information or insights you don't possess, it takes little work or honor to simply use them as your own.

Part of the problem lies in the competitive nature of the news business. Reporters and editors don't want to admit they got scooped by another paper, or they don't want or don't know how -- to conduct original research. The profession would rather perpetuate the myth of the journalist as a Lone Ranger, collecting information single-handedly and weaving a seamless web of prose without any help from anyone.

Until reporters and their editors confront the problem of plagiarism head-on, it’s clear that journalists will continue to find themselves tangled up. Until then, here are some tips on how to avoid becoming a thief of words.

TIPS FOR AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

• Give credit. Thomas Mallon, author of Stolen Words, an engaging history of plagiarism, says writers should follow a general rule: "If you think you should attribute it, then attribute it." Jeff Jacoby, appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources, acknowledged that simple measure "would absolutely have eliminated this entire problem if I had thought to include a single line in the column saying, "Of course I'm far from the first to deal with the subject. It's been treated many times before."
• The only way you can use a quote from another publication is if you attribute it. ("The mayor is crazy" Smith told The Daily Blatt.) The need for attribution should be enough to make you realize you should do the interview yourself, unless that is impossible. ("The mayor is crazy," Smith told The Daily Blatt the day before he disappeared.)
• Consider using a text box or online links that provide information about the sources in your story. In some magazines, readers are pointed to source materials if they wish to pursue the subject further.
• Always identify the sources of your information as you are gathering it. If you copy something verbatim be sure to put it in quotes and indicate the author and source. Whether it's a book or magazine or page on the World Wide Web. If you are paraphrasing, be sure to include the source. Always note your sources: book title, author, page number; address of a Web page (you'd be wise, given how often the link you read yesterday might be inactive today, to make a printout).
• Manage your time wisely. Plagiarism, like its cousin fabrication, often is an act of desperation. Writers, behind on a deadline, exhausted, anxious, may delude themselves into believing that what they're doing is nothing more than a shortcut. When in doubt, check with your editor.
• Be honest, with yourself, your editors, your readers. Verlyn Klinkenborg of The New York Times' editorial board argues that attributing to texts, even those in the public domain, is the very foundation of intellectual honesty. Before you hit the send button, ask yourself where you got the information and more important the ideas and words your story contains. If the answer is another writer, just think how you’d feel if someone kidnapped your words.

Sources Consulted For This Story

"The Other Side of Originality" by Walter Kendrick. Review of Stolen Words: Forays Into the Origins and Ravages of Plagiarism. By Thomas Mallon. The New York Times. Oct. 29, 1989.

"Vera Atkins, 92, Spymaster for British, Dies" By Douglas Martin, The New York Times. June 27, 2000 Editors' Note. The New York Times. July 14, 2000, Friday

Online Sources

Jim Romenesko's MediaNews

"Plagiarism's Many Dhades of Gray." By Mark Jurkowitz, The Boston Globe. July 27, 2000.

"Changing the Rules." By Dan Kennedy. The Boston Phoenix. July 20-27.

"Rivard: A Commitment and a Confession." By Robert Rivard. San Antonio Express-News. July 15, 2000.

"Readers' Advocate: Writers and Newspapers Lose Credibility when Information is not Attributed Properly" By Carolyn Kingcade. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. July 23, 2000

-- This story was updated and excerpted from chapter 11, "Doing the Right Thing: Libel, Privacy and Ethics" of Scanlan's Reporting and Writing: Basics for the 21st Century (Harcourt 2000).