Plagiarism is commonly defined as the unauthorized or unacknowledged appropriation of the words, graphic images, or ideas from another person. As such plagiarism can be a violation of intellectual property rights, although it is not in all cases illegal. It is in fact one of the most serious general issues in the practice of scientific scholarship, in part because its precise boundaries are not always easily determined and because concepts of plagiarism have evolved considerably over time. Opportunities for plagiarism and efforts to deal with it have also altered in conjunction with technological change.

Plagiarism overlaps yet is distinct from copyright infringement; the latter can occur with proper attribution, while plagiarism cannot, and the latter generally occurs with the failure to obtain permission to use copyrighted material (Lindey 1952). Further, while definitions of copyright infringement are based on statute, definitions of plagiarism—and their resultant interpretations—vary considerably across...