Grimmer Girl here, today we're going to discuss a serious topic, plagiarism, so serious

that we've brought in a ninja to emphasize the point.

You may have already read or heard that plagiarism is a serious academic offense in a form

of intellectual dishonesty.

But you may still be wondering what precisely is plagiarism.

So plagiarism is the act of presenting the words or ideas of someone else, as if they're

your own words or ideas.

In other words, it's not giving credit where credit is due, and that's bad, and the ninja

may kill you, especially when the plagiarized work is submitted for a grade or appears in

a publication.

Mariam Webster defines the verb plagiarized in this way, quote, to steal and pass off the

ideas or words of another as one's own, to use another's production without crediting

the source, unquote.

Stealing someone else's words may not seem like a big deal, but it is, and the academic

community is not the only place where plagiarism is considered a major violation.

Recently the New York Times reported that, quote, the creators of South Park apologized

to the creators of a web comedy video, satirizing the summer blockbuster inception, saying

that they had used dialogue from a video on the website CollegeHumor.com.

A sincere apology, however, doesn't always settle the case.

In another news story this year, quote, Zachary Cowie, a former New York Times business reporter

resigned after he was accused of plagiarizing from the Wall Street Journal.

An internal review of his work turned out more articles containing copy clearly lifted

...