Patchworking

QuickLesson 15: Plagiarism—Five "Copywrongs" of Historical Writing

Intellectual pickpocketing. Stealing a ride on someone else’s train of thought. Taking something from someone and making it worse. Larding your lean work with the fat of others.1  Wits and sages, through the ages, have described plagiarism in many ways—not one of them flattering. The P-word is a label none of us want the world to attach to us. Yet it can happen so easily when we are inattentive, naïve, or beset by a bout of laziness.