Students plagiarism is a serious issue at many universities. I remember attending a seminar about it where one of the speakers pointed out that plagiarism is something that people should be educated about. As an example she refereed a case where a students ask 'Why do you call this plagiarism? I bought a book, it is mine. I can do whatever I want with it."

The rest was already very well said in previous comments.

I think you already know the answer to this Miranda! Direct translation is still plagiarising, however , it is still interesting because what some English speaking students do is more or less just translating from English to English, if you get my meaning. Avoiding plagiarism is complex. For me to avoid plagiarism there has at least some reframing of meaning. So direct translation from any language into another (or even itself), is plagiarising. Another idea though is what about translating phonetic languages into pictographic languages & vice versa. That makes it entirely different.

Thanks Mark. I think that this issue (plagiarizing) contributes to the reason why many students take such a long time to finish the PhD program. I'm thankful I had an external supervisor in Australia who knows my research area well, and sent me some of his articles for my review. At least it's necessary to have a supervisor who can vouch for the quality of the thesis, and that it's original.

Mark - an excellent response. Plagiarism is complex indeed - and especially in this context. Non-native English-speaking students are often criticised as using 'language deficits' as an excuse or 'ignorance' when it comes to plagiarism claims. I don't think that it is often as easy as that. I'm English - but would dread to think how I would translate my research findings to another language. I fully agree though that perhaps a 'dividing line' is has there been an attempt to 'reframe' the context - even if through inaccurate paraphrasing?

Dean, Mark, my question may not be relevant in UK and Australia. But it is so in my country, and other places where English is not the first language.

Miranda -'your question is very relevent here; we have many international students - and our future strategy encourages more. Agreed Jane - many students are referred to the university policy and resources - and that does not, in itself, prevent it. On the other hand, I have supported a number of students how to avoid plagiarism - and yet they have gone ahead anyway - hoping to get away with it.

Being a critical reader for literature is your way to avoid plagiarism. It is a skill that should be taught for anyone about to start researching....

Dear All,

When citing something one would like to (or should) refer to the ideas or results of the original author. The essence is the idea and one would like to use it in his/her own work. What can be the situation? Some intense willingly to steal the idea or result of somebody else or the citing person does not know how to cite or is unfamiliar in the use of a language (which may be the English). Thus, there is a difference.

However, in the epoch of Internet there is a huge temptation to take the words and with it the thoughts of another person. Students and sometimes some “scientists” have done it.

What to do? One can do almost nothing against dishonest people in a society where cheating may be a virtue. In the other case education can help.

I do not see a real question here. When I write i translate my thoughts and ideas to a form through which they become intelligible for others. This can be called a first-order translation. When I translate such translations to another language, only this second-order translation can be called as my original work, and it have a merit, but it is the proof of language competences, not scientific ones. So the case is that even if i managed to produce something original through translating another text, i still have to give credit, according to scientific standatrds, to the author of the original text.

The only situation when this could be a more complex issue is when i translate my own original publication to another language and try to "sell it" a second time. Some editors allow that (if a full reference to the previous publication is included) and some do not, however I doubt that this problem often emerges during the student life.

Dear János,

I have corrected and verified dozens of so called diploma works in your own country and unfortunately many of them used another people’s ideas and words without citations. In addition, I have information on “industrial” cheatings when somebody with a PhD degree repeatedly scanned pseudo scientific books and published them as his own work. Now, how shall I call this activity? At your own university teachers use computer programmes to find fabricated student essays.

Dear András, I meant that translating your own publication to another language is not a common thing when somebody is still a student. Plagiarism, however, is a much more common one, just as you mentioned.

Miranda,

On the contrary, your question is relavent in the UK &AU because of the wider implications as I alluded. the issue of 'what constitutes translation' is important in this context. As I tried to point out, translation from pictograph to phonetic may by its very nature require reframing of concepts (not 100% sure) similarly rewriting in one's own words in the same language may simply be a translation not a reframing. Perhaps in the end it is the context that makes the difference and only the reader can really decide.

Yes Mark. Perhaps that's why the supervisors who read and re-read the many drafts of students' theses have such a great problem deciding if their work deserves a PhD. Especially if the supervisor's own research is not very similar to the students'. And that could be why the students who write and publish complete the course a good deal faster. Honesty is the best policy :)

It is a hard question. Some people can get a high remuneration for a good translation. Also they have a copyright for the translation mainly in case of belles-lettres. If I translate a scientific book I can get some financial reward and the copyright. Who can determine which formal modifications are necessary in the text of a thesis if the PhD student cites correctly the original author?

Do you (anyone of you) happen to know is there available software to check on plagiarism when the original text is translated to another language?

Miranda: As far as I know there is no such software. This kind of plagirism can only be detected by humans. Also there is the issue that the so-called plagiarism checker softwares does not really detect plagiarism; they are only able to show parallels between two ore more texts. Whether this means plagiarism or not must be decided by the human using the software,

The empirical evidence for the above can be found in the 'Plagiarism Detection Software Test 2013' (Deborah Weber-Wulff et all 2013) http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software-en/test2013/report-2013/

Results show that 15 tested plagiarim softwares scored between 0 and 1 points on a 0-5 scale when it came to detect translation plagiarism (test case#36-Champagne). http://plagiat.htw-berlin.de/software-en/test2013/individual-scores/

Miranda,

As far as I know a plagiarism verifying programme is used at the Faculty of Humanities in Budapest. Teachers use it controlling essays and diploma works because it occurred earlier that some students submitted other people’s earlier written works as their owns. In these cases translation was an unimportant thing.

János, You can ask it at the dean’s office.

It's called the KOPI Plágiumkereső

http://kopi.sztaki.hu/

Thanks Janos and Andras. There I go again, always hoping that Technology is available and ready to assist me.

Thanks, János.

I have had several dozens of Socrates students from many European countries and our common language is mostly English. One of their tasks is to write an essay. According to my experiences it is an easy job to find possible plagiarism in these works. I have only to read their texts and if I have found something which is clever and written in right English I look for some details in Google. Unfortunately, 80-90% of the cases these essays were copied from documents on Internet.

Students plagiarism is a serious issue at many universities. I remember attending a seminar about it where one of the speakers pointed out that plagiarism is something that people should be educated about. As an example she refereed a case where a students ask 'Why do you call this plagiarism? I bought a book, it is mine. I can do whatever I want with it."

The rest was already very well said in previous comments.

Yes Sylvia, there is also the group of students who translate. They say: 'The original writer doesn't use this language, and can't write these words.' It's really difficult to educate these obstinate types!

Miranda, I guess translating, without citing, etc. an idea is plagiarism (from the word's definition). But detecting it is triply harder. It is in some ways similar to enacting a written book, novel, or short story into a movie or a play without acknowledging the author.

Thanks Ed. I quite agree. During the year that I submitted my thesis, most students wrote in Malay. But some of my friends wrote in English. Only my thesis was sent to Australia, because I had an external supervisor, David Rawlings. He's on RG, but probably very busy with his research on personality psychology. So I follow him on RG, but he may be unaware of it :))

Sent from mobile.

Dear Miranda, I think translation is a good mean to get more knowledge from different sources. However students must cite the original source and the translated one. Any research work is based on previous work it is good that students make a compilation of the science's matter to get a better view of their subject.

Yes Fairouz. But I think that the student should also re-frame the content that is translated, besides citing it.

If it is not translated, without re-framing or re-writing, it would have become Plagiarism.

Thanks @miranda et al. A lot to learn from discussion.

Thanks Darasingh et al. What is your experience? Do your students try to pass up assignments that are copied from other sources? Or do they produce original work?

@Miranda, there is a blog of notes about literary plagiarists and intellectual property. This article is devoted to Reflections on Translation Plagiarism!

http://plagiarius.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/reflections-on-translation-plagiarism/

Most student want to produce some original work but the time limits make them plagiarise.

@Ljubomir, thanks for all the great links that you give us. I was so busy, I just saw this post today! Patrick has answered Vijay's question on my behalf, thanks. Friends, I will be back when I can :) Just enjoy your blogging; but today I have to be at my writing.