Plagiarism Guide

This plagiarism guide is meant to help you understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

What is Plagiarism?

As defined by Oxford University, “Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional.”

To add to this, plagiarism can occur in text, audio, video, or images. If you are borrowing directly from someone else and you’re not acknowledging that, you are plagiarizing by definition. Anything you upload or save to the BFMS is assumed to be your own work, so plagiarism can occur outside of competitions.

In most cases, plagiarism can be avoided by providing a link to the source you are borrowing from, as we did above. Especially in terms of images found on avatar databases, DeviantArt, or other such places, you must make sure you are following the rules the artist has set for the re-use of their work, as well.

This is just for fun. Why should we care about plagiarism in Bravo Fleet?

Is it fun to have your ideas stolen by someone else and passed off as their own? In creative endeavors, there is no more serious an ethical lapse as plagiarism, precisely because the goal here is to come together to share our ideas, explore Star Trek through writing and art, and build a shared world together. Without trust, that is impossible.

Beyond the ethical implications, however, plagiarism is a violation of the Magistrate Code, and some versions of it are also violations of the Legal Policy. You have agreed to both of these documents by virtue of your membership in this organization.

Isn’t Bravo Fleet itself plagiarising Star Trek?

There is a two-part answer to this question: first, Bravo Fleet attributes Star Trek to Paramount and other appropriate copyright holders and does not claim any ownership; plagiarism would be passing it off as our own. Second, we also follow the copyright holder’s stated guidelines for transformative works (i.e. fan works).

Does this mean I can’t borrow from the show in my stories?

A plot inspired by one seen on Star Trek is not plagiarism, at least not necessarily. If you like the arc of a particular story and want to play it out using your own characters, that is likely an homage or an allusion; Star Trek itself does this very regularly, borrowing from itself and from other franchises. What would be plagiarism, in this case, would be taking an entire script from an episode (or a scene) and replicating it exactly.

What if a source is already plagiarism of something else?

Plagiarism of plagiarism is plagiarism. If you recognize that it’s plagiarism, it’s probably not great to use it, but citing the original source and the one you are using would be the appropriate course of action here.

Can I plagiarize myself?

Yes, if you present work you have written or created for a competition or award passing it off as a new creation, that would be a type of plagiarism called auto-plagiarism. As an example, if you submit a piece of fiction to a competition, and then a competition with a very similar prompt occurs a few years later, it would be inappropriate to submit the same story for that new competition.