<p>Hi, my friend told me about CC a while back, and I'm am really seeking people's help. My English is very poor so please bear with me.</p>
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<p>In biology, we made brochures of infectious diseases. At the time, I was fairly new to the US, and my knowledge of the US laws and regulations were very limited. In my brochure, I say, Pinworm in an intestinal infection caused by white parasitic worms called Enterobius vermicularis. The worms are about 1cm in length and live in the rectum of humans. At night, female pinworms crawl out of the anus and lay eggs on the surrounding skin. Whereas my source stated, What is pinworm infection? This is caused by a small, white intestinal worm called Enterobius vermicularis (EN-ter-O-be-us ver-MIK-u-lar-is). Pinworms are about the length of a staple and live in the rectum of humans. While an infected person sleeps, female pinworms leave the intestines through the anus and deposit eggs on the surrounding skin. In (country), issues concerning intellectual property are rarely mentioned. I thought as long as I dont copy anything word for word, it would be ok. My teacher informed me that even though I reversed the structure of the sentence and changed a few words, it is still considered plagiarizing. She gave me no credit for the work but never informed the office because it was truly an unintentional mistake. Even thought my record is clear, I do not want to hide the fact that I was once accused of a crime. I consider it an important lesson. After all, it is better to learn it earlier than later. I dont want this to happen ever again, and in order to do so, I needed to learn more about the issue. It is for that reason that I decided to take Intellectual Property.</p>
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<p>I've already been accepted to Harvard SSP, and should I send them this anyways? I probably deserve to be rejected.</p>
<p>You want to send them a report of the incident? Why? Thats just ridiculous to send them something like that for no advantage to you. It was an honest mistake, I think you would **** them off if you sent them something like this, since you would consume their time. Just dont do anything stupid.</p>
<p>You were not accused of a crime. "Accused of a crime" here means facing charges that are filed by the police.</p>
<p>What you did is not considered a crime in that you were a student who honestly didn't know what you were doing was plagiarism. Your teacher didn't even file a report at school about it, which indicates that your teacher realizes that you simply made a mistake out of ignorance about plagiarism. You were not trying to take credit for someone else's work.</p>
<p>The students who get into big trouble for plagiarism are the ones that end up being suspended or otherwise disciplined at school because of plagiarism. This is the kind of thing that goes on their school record and has to be reported when applying to many colleges and summer programs which ask the question: "Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school."</p>
<p>Do not report what happened to you. Based on your description, it is not the kind of incident that SSP or other programs would concern themselves with.</p>
<p>But I wanted to comment on this alleged case of plagiarism.
I personally don't consider this a "real" case of plagiarism...
what you were reporting were absolute scientific FACTS that could be found in any encyclopedia... of course, somewhere on your brochure you should have stated the source for your facts, perhaps as a footnote or endnote. But my general understanding of plagiarism is that if what you are reporting are widely available, uncontroverted facts without opinion or spin or interpretation, then it is either not plagiarism or a very weak kind. </p>
<p>Plagiarism is a VERY SERIOUS offense when you report others original ideas as your own... you must always cite your sources.
That is theft of intellectual property.
But it is clear from the context that you were not stealing anyone's ideas, you were just reporting uncontroverted, widely available facts.</p>
<p>If wrote a paper, and said the earth orbits the sun, and fail to credit Copernicus or Galileo, is that plagiarism?</p>
<p>I did cite my sources on my brochure, and we also had to turn in printouts of the sources we used. But anyway, thanks you guys. I feel much better now.</p>
<p>if you paraphrased that sentence and put a MLA citing after it for example "Pinworm in an intestinal infection caused by white parasitic worms called Enterobius vermicularis. The worms are about 1cm in length and live in the rectum of humans. At night, female pinworms crawl out of the anus and lay eggs on the surrounding skin." (Blah Blah Brochure, pg. 1) </p>
<p>Then that should be fine I would assume. If you did not cite it then it is plagiarism. Search google, there are some good sites about it so you can learn :). I had to take the time myself to learn more about it too, as said, you dont want to be caught the second time doing it, thats when it might be serious...</p>