Explicit examples of plagiarism

Turnitin, a company dedicated to provide tools to prevent plagiarism on worldwide scale, conducted a study to find out what different kinds of plagiarism exist (Defining Plagiarism: The Plagiarism Spectrum). In Defining Plagiarism: The Plagiarism Spectrum they come up with ten different types of plagiarism. With this study they want to move plagiarism beyond the black and white definition of “literary theft” to a more nuanced version that captures how plagiarism can take form in different ways. They categorize ten types:

1.       Clone: submitting another’s work, word-for-word, as one’s own.
2.       Ctrl-c: contains significant portions of text from a single source without alterations.
3.       Find – Replace changing key words and phrase but retaining the essential content of the source.
4.       Remix: Paraphrases from multiple sources, made to fit together.
5.       Recycle: borrows generously from the writer’s previous work without citation.
6.       Hybrid: Combines perfectly cited sources with copied passages without citation.
7.       Mashup: Mixes copied material from multiple sources.
8.       404 Error: Includes citations to non-existent or inaccurate information about sources.
9.       Aggregator: Includes proper citation to sources but the paper contains almost no original work.
10.     Re-tweet: includes proper citation, but relies too closely on the text’s original wording and/or structure.

Specific examples and a more detailed description of each type you can find on the website of Turnitin.