Plagiarism is a taboo that one must avoid at all costs. One of the most common is incremental plagiarism. We seek to understand what incremental plagiarism is, how to avoid it, and why some famous people commit it.
Incremental plagiarism occurs when one fails to cite the sources well when quoting a famous speaker in a speech. It is a least understood form of plagiarism that is hard for one to correct.
It is necessary to correct this form of plagiarism as it can ruin the credibility of the offender and lead to public backlash. People will often overlook it since they are not conscious that it is also plagiarism.
Why People Commit Incremental Plagiarism
Plagiarism is disgraceful and unjust. Even so, many people are unable to resist the temptation of stealing words from another person’s efforts.
Each day, the news hits the headlines of people who plagiarize speeches, lyrics and songs, and more. In this section, we try to answer why people resort to committing incremental plagiarisms.
1. Laziness
Some people harbor a “don’t care” attitude. They may lack the motivation to complete the work systematically and ethically. Such students think that it is pointless to follow the right approach in delivering quality work.
If an author knows the value of work, chances are the work ethic must improve. As such, it becomes hard for them to plagiarize. If students fail to take work seriously, then they are likely to resort to cheating.
2. Inadequate Time
Lack of time would be the writer’s fault. It comes as a result of poor time management skills pushing one in a tight situation to complete the work ethically and professionally.
Due to a lack of that focus, the author may lack adequate time to complete the work.
Besides, it could be the fault of the person you assigned the task to handle.
If an author has a strict deadline with limited time left, then they are likely to perform poorly and fail to meet the threshold of originality.
Anything that one does hurriedly is likely to have high levels of errors and mistakes.
3. The Belief that you Will not Get Caught
Some speechwriters plagiarize while thinking that no one is watching them, really. Another question is why one should take time and effort to work on projects that require little effort to plagiarize.
If found in such a condition, you should endeavor to use all the tools that can detect plagiarism in your work. The strong system will help you to eliminate any suggestions by paraphrasing them to make your speech or work original.
4. They Made a Mistake
It can be the least common of all, but mistakes do happen. They can occur through lost citation or poor paraphrasing. It will not look like a malicious crime when plagiarism occurs through an error.
Students find themselves in the cycle of accusations of plagiarism through making simple mistakes.
That is crucial because any professional environment expects one to be familiar with all the rules of citation. They also include paraphrasing to overcome the plagiarism trap.
5. They are Snowed Under
Such is true, especially to the people who keep on procrastinating till the final minute. Students will commit all their time to other things that do not relate to the academic work and later discover that the deadline for such an assignment is in the next minute.
If one is doing a painstaking task, the chance is high that one will fall prey to plagiarism and later undermine their reputation.
5. Fear of Failure
Many students get scared by failing in their essays. Success scares them off too. They fear seeing their awkward work being assessed as it is quite scary. In response, they strive to keep their work out of the spotlight by resorting to plagiarism.
6. Disinterest in the Assignment
People desire to encounter the glory and the fame that comes out of the writings. The challenge is it is ever hard to come out with top-notch literary work. That is the only avenue for creating a good reputation and high bargaining points.
Many students give up and opt to plagiarize and compromise their analytical skills. Since such students have little interest in the project, following the right procedures are not an issue.
How to avoid Incremental Plagiarism
It will involve a lot of proper planning to avoid incremental plagiarism. Many students perform many errors when they have little time to complete the assignment.
You can make your speech to be original by performing the following actions:
Honesty
You should remain honest with yourself. Lack of honesty is what makes plagiarism bad and brings the ethical angle.
One of the greatest mistakes speech writers fail to make is not admitting or mentioning their sources as they quote others.
The best way is to put the parenthesis around the source. Ensure that you do not hide the phrases. It is the same way as the way we prevent patchwork plagiarism which we covered in the other guide.
Plan the Speech
The speaker should be honest and open to be credible with the audience concerning the sources of your material. While it is common to cite the source at the end when you are writing the book, the situation might be different in speeches.
You must be honest with your audience and inform them of who said that. You can plan the speech by following the following steps:
- Know the purpose of the speech.
- Have an outline of what the speech will cover.
- Let the main argument be in the speech body.
- Indicate the sources by citing what someone stated.
Ensures the Sources are Accurate
Before you begin citing your sources, countercheck to see that they are accurate. It places a demand on you to verify all the sources of your information as you quote it. Do you know that some people fabricate facts?
Ensure that you are authentic since you are dealing with an intelligent audience. Take your time to find all the credible sources. Avoid last-minute arrangements because in case you make a false statement, you will be accountable for it.
What you Should Cite
Pay close attention to what you want to cite. It may not sound professional at citing common knowledge because anyone can attribute it.
For example, you do not need to confirm that fish provides protein because it is common knowledge. Follow the general rule by citing statements and common knowledge.
Famous People who Committed Incremental Plagiarism in Speeches
Famous people in history landed in the hot soap when they became guilty of incremental plagiarism. Some of the examples areas listed below:
Melanie Trump
In 2016 Melanie Trump made news headlines when giving a keynote speech at the Republican National convention. One journalist discovered that the speech was familiar and went ahead to do some research. The speech reflected a vast case of incremental plagiarism.
The speech lifted some parts that Michelle Obama said while addressing the Democratic national convention in 2008. Worst enough, the speech had at least 47 % of the similarity.
It was a big disappointment as the Trump team received a lot of backlashes. The team got heavy mass criticism while the campaign team denied it.
Incremental plagiarism can be embarrassing if you fail to do proper research well. It can drain your gains and the public trust that the audience had in you.
Manny V. Pangilinan
Manny V. Pangilinan gave a graduation speech at Ateneo de Manila University in 2010. After that, the fans went through the speech of this tycoon and discovered that many areas of this speech were under plagiarism.
When run under the plagiarism checker, many discovered that it had some sections come from speeches of Barrack Obama, Conan O’Brien, and Oprah Winfrey. When news hit hard.
This tycoon had to make a public apology. Due to heavy criticism, he had to resign from the University’s board of trustees.
When this tycoon accepted responsibility, he recovered from the public backlash. As such, the move helped him to overcome the damages of the same controversy. The cool thing is the same tycoon encouraged dialogue on incremental plagiarism.
How to Copy other People without Incremental Plagiarism
1. Avoid Copy-Pasting
It is not right to copy-paste from other sources.
However, you can reproduce the same idea in different words, which is paraphrasing.
When you want to quote the original author, then ensure to put the quotes in the copy-pasted text.
Check our guide on how to copy without plagiarizing for tips about the best ways to avoid such problems.
2. Cite Well
One way of avoiding missing citations is to insert citations as you write the paper. In case you put the paper away for a few weeks or days, you are likely to forget where you got the information from.
The best approach is to use short quotations. Ensure you limit the same quotation to one or two sentences. It makes your text to be hard to read if you use lots of quotations.
3. Avoid Self-Plagiarism
Avoid using your previous work when you are writing a task. Self-plagiarism is also part of copyrights infringement, which may cause you to re-publish the piece that could be available somewhere.
Recycling the old work may lead is the reason why you may encounter self-plagiarism issues. It is always messy, and one should avoid it at all costs. However, you can only use it when you are citing your own research paper.
Joseph is a freelance journalist and a part-time writer with a particular interest in the gig economy. He writes about schooling, college life, and changing trends in education. When not writing, Joseph is hiking or playing chess.