Category Archives: Plagiarism

Here, steal this thought

Greg England wrote about a cute story he heard a preacher tell, a story about when the preacher was young. Problem was, I’d heard that story numerous times. And it was all over the Internet. When I pointed that out to Greg, he didn’t find the story quite as cute. No one likes to be deceived.
When I was in college, one of our local preachers liked to do that. He told stories about his college days, dazzling us with the quick wit and the daring way he spoke to his professors. None of it was true, of course. Maybe he assumed we knew those were old Bill Cosby jokes he was telling. I for one felt like he had lied to me.
Obviously, stealing someone else’s sermon is worse. Also while in college, I heard the preacher at my parents’ home church preach a sermon that was one of the best I’d heard from him. I liked it less when I found it in a Chuck Swindoll book, word for word.
To those who speak in public: nobody thinks the less of you if you admit that you are using something you’ve read from someone else. A verbal “footnote” takes a few seconds and means a lot. That story will be just as effective even if you tell it as having happened to someone else. You don’t have to put yourself into the joke to make it funny. Speak as one who tells the truth. Make it clear to everyone that what you say happened just as you said it did.
I can’t always remember from where I’ve gotten an idea. If nothing else, you can say, “I read once…” or “As someone said…” If the thought isn’t yours and you know it, admit that. And if you want to use someone else’s lesson once in a while, that’s okay. Just admit it.
Or am I the only that thinks preacher plagiarism is wrong?

Plagued by Plagiarism

I was really surprised. Not that somebody would take something I’d written for Heartlight.org and repost it. Not even that they would repost it without crediting the source. But to see my article posted under someone else’s name on a church website was shocking to me. (Finding it again on another site was less of a shock; guess I’d gotten used to it).

I’ve heard the stories of preachers sitting in the audience and hearing their own sermons being preached. Or the stories of preachers using others’ stories as if they had actually happened to them. I even know of one preacher who was interviewing for a job and used a sermon by someone else… and the other sermon was on tape in the church library. Oops!

Don’t plagiarize. It’s as simple as that. Go overboard in quoting your sources. Nobody will think the less of you. Preachers, if you say, “I got a lot of these ideas from a sermon I heard,” no one will be upset (though you might not want to do it every week). If the story happened to somebody else, it still has power. Don’t lie. It didn’t happen to you. It happened to them. If you want to put somebody else’s article in your bulletin, go ahead. But credit the source. People will appreciate your bringing that information to their attention. Bloggers, people will value what you have to say even more when you point out where it came from. Teachers, writers, speakers, everyone! Don’t plagiarize.

Now somebody help me down from this soapbox.