Plagiarism and Statute of Limitations
Plagiarism may be defined as the action of using or imitating the work of another person or an author without appropriately citing that person.
The statute of limitations on the other hand is described as a segment of the law that dictates the maximum amount of time that one has to pursue legal proceedings for an event that has occurred and after which the claim becomes invalid upon the expiry of that period of time.
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What Is Plagiarism?
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There are several situations that constitute plagiarism. Some of the common situations include an author submitting work or a report in his name but in truth the work or the report was done by someone else. In this case, a ghost writer has been hired by the author and submits work in the author's name. Another scenario might be where the work is purely someone else's, but a writer submits that work after paraphrasing it to such an extent that it looks original and doesn't include any citations to acknowledge the original work.
Detecting Plagiarism
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For hard-copies one may analyze whether the documents submitted are written in a manner that is within the ability of the author in question. For soft-copies there are several software applications which may be used to analyze the document online. As such, many educational institutions insist that students submit their reports in soft-copy for analysis. Also the students are obligated to declare that the work submitted is purely their own. Another responsibility of the educator is to inform the students of the disciplinary consequences of plagiarism.
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The Statute of Limitations
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These "laws" are designed to encourage swift action since after some predetermined period of time has expired, the case will be cited as invalid in a court of law. Thus, this prompts lawyers and others contemplating legal action to be vigilant about the initiation of legal action.
Limits on the Statute of Limitations
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One downside of this statute occurs in relation to the copyright issue. The statute of limitations puts the time of claiming any infringement at three years. Concerns are then raised about offenders who may infringe the statute and then go into hiding for three years only to re-emerge when they cannot be sued in a court of law since the case will then be considered invalid. Examples of the latter could include documents such as final reports for degree, masters or doctoral studies. Such documents may go undetected for months and even years; a judicial remedy can only be issued once the plagiarism has been discovered. However, the three-year time period does not start until the infringement has been noted and after that discovery, one has three months to file a complaint failure or the case will be invalid.
Relationship Between Plagiarism and the Statute of Limitations
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Plagiarism is very much dependent on the statute of limitations as the latter determines the validity of any case of plagiarism and the scope to which the offender can be charged.
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