Plagiarism Mania

What is Plagiarism?

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source.

Plagiarism is a serious fraud. Some journalists have ended their career as they stole someone else’s work. There were many students who had to leave university after submitting an essay with missing reference. Most schools have been using plagiarism detector software.

It was an earthquake in the journalism world. 27-year-old Jayson Blair, who had been one of only two African-American editors in the history of the University of Maryland's Diamondback newspaper, and had been hired as a full reporter at the New York Times at an impressively young age, resigned only 6 days after first being accused of copying a story from another newspaper.(source)

Later, it was discovered that he had a bipolar disorder which is a serious mental problem.

Above article I came across for some reason made me remind a Burmese blogger and her scandal. Apparently, she(he) was bitterly criticised by a lobby of people who found out her copy works. Personally, I like her blog posts which are pretty entertaining. At the same time, I tried to help her out. At this point, my thought was that if there is any strong relation between plagiarism and some mental or personality disorder.

Basically, psychiatry is an interesting speciality, explaining a variety of mental and personal disorders, although, I believe, there are many areas the psychiatrists have not explored yet. (Click here for Who classification of mental and behavioural disorders). (Easy view on Wiki)

In my attempt to establish “the repeated plagiarism” as a psychological condition, unfortunately I could not find any relevant publication or paper available on free Internet sources while waiting for a reply email from my friend, who is a psychiatrist. I think it can be added under that heading of Habit and impulse disorders, together with

• Pathological gambling
• Pathological fire-setting (pyromania)
• Pathological stealing (kleptomania)
• Trichotillomania
  

Can we call this condition as Plagiarmania or Plagiamania or Plagiarism mania?

Probably, the treatment option would include cognitive and behaviour therapy, rather than criticising and shouting in an uneducated manner. Own GP would be helpful this point.

Basically, no body is perfect in the world while some proportion of healthy looking persons may have a mild form of personality deviation. Who knows?

By the way, if someone wants to check own personality disorder privately, click here.

Thank you

All the best