Don't Lip-Synch Your Way Through College

By Tim McIndoo, Dissertation Editor

Here’s a riddle:

What do Milli Vanilli and scholarly writing have in common?

You remember Milli Vanilli, the German pop group that appeared in the late 80s and won a Grammy in 1990? It turned out that the lead vocals were not sung by the band’s members. As a result, the group was stripped of its Grammy award and faced numerous lawsuits. Millions of album buyers were eligible for refunds. So why offer refunds? Because what the album purported to represent was not the case: band members Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan were merely lip-synching; therefore, buyers were defrauded.

Guess what? Plagiarism is also fraud. Unless you tell your readers otherwise, they will assume that any words or ideas not cited are yours. But if they aren't yours—no matter if it’s a purposeful or accidental misrepresentation—then you're committing fraud and are guilty of plagiarism.

Like the music industry, academic fraud carries penalties. Plagiarism can result in sanctions, expulsion from a program, withdrawal of published books or papers, and even dismissal.

To protect yourself from mistakes—and to respect the work of others—use Turnitin, Grammarly, or another program that checks for similarities among documents.