Note: This exercise was designed by Professor Charlotte Bronson, Department of Plant Pathology, Iowa State University, who presented it at the May 2001 Bioethics Institute at Iowa State University.

Plagiarism is commonly defined as representing as one’s own the ideas and/or writing of another. This includes using another author’s sentences or paragraphs, or significant portions thereof, without quotation marks and an appropriate citation, and conveying information that is not commonly known without citing the authors whose original discovery or insight that information represents.

Suppose that a biology student reads the following from a published paper while preparing an essay:

“A class of maize mutants, collectively known as disease lesion mimics, display discrete disease-like symptoms in the absence of pathogens. It is intriguing that a majority of these lesion mimics behave as dominant gain-of-function mutations. The production of lesions is strongly influenced by light, temperature, developmental state and genetic background. Presently, the biological significance of this lesion mimicry is not clear, although suggestions have been made that they may represent defects in the plants’ recognition of, or response to, pathogens. ... In this paper we argue that this might be the case ...”

- G.S. Johal, S.H. Hulbert, and S.P. Briggs. 1995. “Disease lesion mimics of maize: a model for cell death in plants.” BioEssays 17:685-692.

Which of the following passages, if included in the essay the student hands in, would constitute plagiarism?

Note: Charlotte Bronson wrote the following passages for discussion purposes, and her comments on the passages are quoted on the following pages. For a handout containing the above quotation and the following passages, click here.

Click here for the first passage.