Plagiarism....is it a boon or bane !!

 Articulating a blog of a high sensitivity plaguing issue is always a chill down the spine !! I have seen this everywhere , be it music industry , software industry,university research,literature etc you name it , its there. This has been prevalent from time unknown , from our ancestors to the present gadget freaking world....but the fact of the issue is that it actually refined us to a very large extent.I believe plagiarism is fine as long it is aimed at the betterment of the object.

Although Plagiarism is defined as the uncredited use (both intentional and unintentional) of somebody else’s words or ideas , i believe i need to relate it to the software industry considering my background when i started my career.I used to be a geeky "Component Object Model" freak where the basic theory relates to the re-usability of code which i suppose even till today holds good in the software industry.I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel but i have always believed in improving on the piece which has been adopted and ensure it can provide a lot more features than before , which directly indicates the betterment.This clearly for me is the most prudent way to improve oneself and the environment around you. One needs to understand the craftiness of the end product and improve upon it in every field but also be bold enough to admit that.

To be clever when using others work is extremely important.Some tips as below to avoid plagiarism to all those university budding artists ...!!
Example while Quoting :
Quoting involves using exact words, phrases and sentences from a source, setting them off with quotation marks, and citing where the information was taken from.

Below is a passage taken from Leslie Berestein's article "Healthy or Not, the Hookah Habit is Hot," which appeared in the Janurary 27, 2003 issue of Time magazine, volume 161, issue 4.
For centuries, men in the Middle East have gathered around hookahs to puff fruit-scented smoke, talk and pass the time. In the West, however, the water pipe became synonymous with drug culture in the 1960s, an association that lingers. But in the past couple of years, the hookah has been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment.


Here is an example of what would be considered plagiarism of this passage:

Example #1
Men in the Mid East have used hookahs to puff smoke for centuries. The "hookah" has been resurrected today in coffeehouses, restaurants and bars "supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment."
Reason why Example #1 is plagiarism:
Notice the writer of this passage liberally borrows words, phrases and parts of sentences from the Berestein passage (even quoting parts) but gives no indication of where the information came from. Even if the Berestein book is cited at the end of the paper in the bibliography, there is no indication that this particular passage came from the book. This information has been stolen or plagiarized from Berestein.

One of the acceptable examples !!

Example #2
The Middle Eastern water pipe known as the hookah has recently "been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the fad of the moment" (Berestein 10).

Reason why Example #2 is acceptable:
In this example, the writer cites the source using the Modern Language Associaton (MLA) style, with the author's name and page number cited at the end of the quote.

Therefore i would like to conclude my small blog with the message that "Plagiarism is in " and is the prudent way to continuous improvement as long as the sentiments are followed in the right way.

Cheers.