When
the term ‘Plagiarism’ is stripped of the meanings it has come to represent with
recent applications of the word and when the dictionary meaning of the word is
considered in isolation, it simply means ‘the act of using another person's
words or ideas without giving credit to that person’ (as defined on
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary). According to this simple definition there
are two criteria for the application of the term ‘plagiarism’ to any sort of
work. First, there has to be an instance of a borrowed concept or idea. Second,
there should be an absence of acknowledgement of the origins of this borrowed concept
or idea. Only when these two criteria are met can one justifiably use the term
plagiarism (in its verb form ‘plagiarised’) to describe those sections of work
which fulfil these criteria.
