5 ms·

Yeah. How can you plagiarize a definition?

WastingMyTime89 5y ago
I was pondering the same thing until I realized the person you are replying to is somewhat stretching the meaning of definition to mean a multiple paragraphs long explanation of a complex concept which was as I understand it lifted verbatim.
- slapfrog 5y ago
  Even if you only copied a typical one-sentence dictionary definition verbatim without attribution, that would still clearly be a clear-cut case of plagiarism...
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    Hardly. Plagiarism is passing someone else idea or work as your own. Most terms especially technical ones have precise agreed upon definition. Calling quoting them plagiarism is stretching the notion to its limits. Thankfully there is no philosophical conundrum to be had when people are lifting complex explanations.
    - slapfrog 5y ago
      If you want to quote a dictionary's definition, you should cite the dictionary you're quoting. If you're passing the dictionary's definition off as your own, word for word, that is plagiarism.
    - eesmith 5y ago
      The "precise agreed upon definition" is not mapped to a precise agreed upon sequence of words. I find it hard to think of any technical terms which have a fixed, well-specified phrase for the definition, much less ones which, if re-used, don't require attribution. I mean, there are definitional terms like "one meter is the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second" or "the discriminant of the quadratic equation is b^2-4ac". Re-use those quoted definitions and no one will blink. But, what's "evolution", or "electron spin", or "aromaticity"? Even something as well-defined and concrete as "cosine similarity" has many different variations: Wikipedia: a measure of similarity between two non-zero vectors of an inner product space. It is defined to equal the cosine of the angle between them, which is also the same as the inner product of the same vectors normalized to both have length 1 SciKit-learn: the normalized dot product of X and Y: K(X, Y) = <X, Y> / (||X||*||Y||) towardsdatascience.com: the cosine of the angle between the two non-zero vectors statology.org: For two vectors, A and B, the Cosine Similarity is calculated as: Cosine Similarity = ΣAiBi / (√ΣAi2√ΣBi2) uchicago.edu: For vectors, it is the cosine of the angle between those vectors. datadriveninvestor.com: Cosine similarity of two vectors is just the cosine of the angle between two vectors While certainly equivalent, these definitions show some creative choice in how they are worded, and thus if copied, should be cited. (I agree that the creativity level is quite low for some of these, and I believe several people might come up with the same description, but that's a different issue than re-using someone else's definition without attribution.)
      - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
        > (I agree that the creativity level is quite low for some of these, and I believe several people might come up with the same description, but that's a different issue than re-using someone else's definition without attribution.) It's funny because I actually find your exemples to be supporting my point more than yours. All of these sentences are translation in plain English of the absolutly perfectly defined and commonly accepted definition of cosine similarity. SkiKit-Learn is even just writing the formula. uchicago.edu and datadriveninvestor.com even use exactly the same words. I mean, if you came to see me complaining someone was plagirising for writing "For vectors, cosine similarity is the cosine of the angle between those vectors.", I would find that laughable.
        eesmith 5y ago
        Yes, I deliberately chose something that just above trivially simple to show that there was diversity of expression even at that level. That is, even given a technical term with a precise agreed upon definition, the description of that term (eg, in English) does not have a precise agreed-upon form. Incorrect use of the latter may imply plagiarism, and this thread appears to concern that aspect. Most definitions are not as simple as "cosine similarity". Your statement, if true, would mean that most dictionaries would use exactly the same words to describe a given, well-specified scientific concept, yes? What's "Frame dragging" in general relativity? Wikipedia: the effect on spacetime caused by a rotating mass ... Frame-dragging is an effect on spacetime, predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, that is due to non-static stationary distributions of mass–energy. doi:10.1126/science.aax7007 : the mass-energy current of a rotating body induces a gravitomagnetic field, so-called because it has formal similarities with the magnetic field generated by an electric current (1). This gravitomagnetic interaction drags inertial frames in the vicinity of a rotating mass. (quoting from the preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.11405 https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.11405 ). einstein-online.info: a mass’s rotation influences the motion of objects in its neighbourhood doi:10.3390/universe7020027 : The term "frame-dragging" usually refers to the influence of a rotating massive body on a gyroscope by producing vorticity in the congruence of world-lines of observers outside the rotating object. doi:10.1142/9789812564818_0002 : A major consequence of General Relativity and related theories of gravity is that all inertial frames are local. These local frames are accelerated, warped and stretched, and rotated with respect to each other due to the surrounding mass-energy distributions. While only their relative rotations are typically called frame dragging effects, this phrase describes a broader range of gravitational influences on inertia. Very different definitions, because it's hard to express that concept in English. And I think re-using a few of the more extensive definitions, without attribution, is a minor form of plagiarism. (Reusing any follow-up explanation is, as you've agreed, definitely plagiarism.) You might recall that atrettel wrote "the authors were misusing a particular technical term". If you dig in to the papers on frame dragging, you'll note similar complaints, like https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0509025 https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0509025 : "Many accounts of these experiments have been in terms of frame-dragging. We point out that this terminology has given rise to much confusion and that a better description is in terms of spin-orbit and spin-spin effects." > I would find that laughable So would I, which is why I commented 'that's a different issue than re-using someone else's definition without attribution'.

I was pondering the same thing until I realized the person you are replying to is somewhat stretching the meaning of definition to mean a multiple paragraphs long explanation of a complex concept which was as I understand it lifted verbatim.

slapfrog 5y ago
Even if you only copied a typical one-sentence dictionary definition verbatim without attribution, that would still clearly be a clear-cut case of plagiarism...
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  Hardly. Plagiarism is passing someone else idea or work as your own. Most terms especially technical ones have precise agreed upon definition. Calling quoting them plagiarism is stretching the notion to its limits. Thankfully there is no philosophical conundrum to be had when people are lifting complex explanations.
  - slapfrog 5y ago
    If you want to quote a dictionary's definition, you should cite the dictionary you're quoting. If you're passing the dictionary's definition off as your own, word for word, that is plagiarism.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    The "precise agreed upon definition" is not mapped to a precise agreed upon sequence of words. I find it hard to think of any technical terms which have a fixed, well-specified phrase for the definition, much less ones which, if re-used, don't require attribution. I mean, there are definitional terms like "one meter is the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second" or "the discriminant of the quadratic equation is b^2-4ac". Re-use those quoted definitions and no one will blink. But, what's "evolution", or "electron spin", or "aromaticity"? Even something as well-defined and concrete as "cosine similarity" has many different variations: Wikipedia: a measure of similarity between two non-zero vectors of an inner product space. It is defined to equal the cosine of the angle between them, which is also the same as the inner product of the same vectors normalized to both have length 1 SciKit-learn: the normalized dot product of X and Y: K(X, Y) = <X, Y> / (||X||*||Y||) towardsdatascience.com: the cosine of the angle between the two non-zero vectors statology.org: For two vectors, A and B, the Cosine Similarity is calculated as: Cosine Similarity = ΣAiBi / (√ΣAi2√ΣBi2) uchicago.edu: For vectors, it is the cosine of the angle between those vectors. datadriveninvestor.com: Cosine similarity of two vectors is just the cosine of the angle between two vectors While certainly equivalent, these definitions show some creative choice in how they are worded, and thus if copied, should be cited. (I agree that the creativity level is quite low for some of these, and I believe several people might come up with the same description, but that's a different issue than re-using someone else's definition without attribution.)
    - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
      > (I agree that the creativity level is quite low for some of these, and I believe several people might come up with the same description, but that's a different issue than re-using someone else's definition without attribution.) It's funny because I actually find your exemples to be supporting my point more than yours. All of these sentences are translation in plain English of the absolutly perfectly defined and commonly accepted definition of cosine similarity. SkiKit-Learn is even just writing the formula. uchicago.edu and datadriveninvestor.com even use exactly the same words. I mean, if you came to see me complaining someone was plagirising for writing "For vectors, cosine similarity is the cosine of the angle between those vectors.", I would find that laughable.
      - eesmith 5y ago
        Yes, I deliberately chose something that just above trivially simple to show that there was diversity of expression even at that level. That is, even given a technical term with a precise agreed upon definition, the description of that term (eg, in English) does not have a precise agreed-upon form. Incorrect use of the latter may imply plagiarism, and this thread appears to concern that aspect. Most definitions are not as simple as "cosine similarity". Your statement, if true, would mean that most dictionaries would use exactly the same words to describe a given, well-specified scientific concept, yes? What's "Frame dragging" in general relativity? Wikipedia: the effect on spacetime caused by a rotating mass ... Frame-dragging is an effect on spacetime, predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, that is due to non-static stationary distributions of mass–energy. doi:10.1126/science.aax7007 : the mass-energy current of a rotating body induces a gravitomagnetic field, so-called because it has formal similarities with the magnetic field generated by an electric current (1). This gravitomagnetic interaction drags inertial frames in the vicinity of a rotating mass. (quoting from the preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.11405 https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.11405 ). einstein-online.info: a mass’s rotation influences the motion of objects in its neighbourhood doi:10.3390/universe7020027 : The term "frame-dragging" usually refers to the influence of a rotating massive body on a gyroscope by producing vorticity in the congruence of world-lines of observers outside the rotating object. doi:10.1142/9789812564818_0002 : A major consequence of General Relativity and related theories of gravity is that all inertial frames are local. These local frames are accelerated, warped and stretched, and rotated with respect to each other due to the surrounding mass-energy distributions. While only their relative rotations are typically called frame dragging effects, this phrase describes a broader range of gravitational influences on inertia. Very different definitions, because it's hard to express that concept in English. And I think re-using a few of the more extensive definitions, without attribution, is a minor form of plagiarism. (Reusing any follow-up explanation is, as you've agreed, definitely plagiarism.) You might recall that atrettel wrote "the authors were misusing a particular technical term". If you dig in to the papers on frame dragging, you'll note similar complaints, like https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0509025 https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0509025 : "Many accounts of these experiments have been in terms of frame-dragging. We point out that this terminology has given rise to much confusion and that a better description is in terms of spin-orbit and spin-spin effects." > I would find that laughable So would I, which is why I commented 'that's a different issue than re-using someone else's definition without attribution'.