Sunday, February 13, 2005: Page updated at 12:00 AM

Seattle Times Plagiarism Guidelines

Introduction

In August, 2004, high-profile reports of plagiarism at several newspapers - including this one - touched off wide-ranging conversations in the newsroom about what constituted plagiarism and, in particular, whether practices some of us engage in routinely might be unwitting violations of the profession’s ban on word-stealing.

A subcommittee of the newsroom’s Ethics and Standards Committee formed to address those questions. Before we could do that, we concluded, we had to agree on what plagiarism was, then identify principles that would guide us as we attempted to provide some guidance for our colleagues.

Plagiarism, we decided, is the representation of others’ language or creative work as one’s own. It’s wrong, we determined, because it violates several inter-related principles that are essential to credible journalism:

Honesty/integrity: Readers expect The Times to talk straight to them. Plagiarism is deception.

Accuracy: Readers expect The Times to make every effort to present information that is correct. The newspaper can’t vouch for the accuracy of material that is plagiarized.

Transparency: Readers deserve to know where The Times gets the information it publishes. Plagiarism deprives them of that knowledge.

Once we came up with our definition of plagiarism – and agreed it is indefensible – our subcommittee moved pretty quickly to the grayer, less clear-cut questions staffers raised. We found ourselves talking more about appropriate attribution than plagiarism. We decided they’re really two sides of the same coin.

The guidelines below cover attribution and techniques for avoiding plagiarism, and proper credit and use of wire copy. In preparing these guidelines, we looked to our definition of plagiarism, our guiding principles, and two question News Editor Mike Stanton posed: What does the reader deserve to know? And what's fair to the source?

Click on the links below to leap to the primary categories in this document:

Attribution
Tips
Wire

Attribution

The Seattle Times recognizes that it is important to provide proper attribution to the original work of others in order to meet our responsibility of accuracy. The goal is transparency in our reporting and clarity for our readers.

As a general rule, we attribute material from an outside source central to a questioned fact or opinion. We always attribute direct quotes or paraphrased statements from an individual, or material taken verbatim or substantively from a second source.

In other instances, a nod to a source in a tagline is sufficient. Most often, this involves generic material culled from the wires or secondary reporting by other staffers. The preferred method – and the one that should be followed if there is any question in your mind – is source-specific attribution in the story itself.

Q. Is it okay to recycle sentences or paragraphs from a previously published article I wrote for The Times?
A. Lifting language from one of your own old stories may be laziness, but it's not plagiarism.

That said, it’s probably a good idea under most circumstances to recast or reword “boilerplate” – language that provides context or background. This isn’t an ironclad rule. Sometimes a writer and editor will arrive at specific, nuanced language that accurately captures and summarizes a particularly complex issue. Using that same language in ongoing coverage may be the most responsible course. Likewise, if you’ve been assigned to take over a story you are not familiar with, perhaps on deadline, using a previous summarization may be the safest route – providing that material is still accurate.

Q. What about lifting information – as opposed to language – from a story I wrote before?
A. Generally, this isn’t a problem – providing you know the information is still accurate.

Q. What if the language or information I wanted to re-use comes from a story someone else wrote that appeared in The Times?
A. This can be more problematic.

The first concern is accuracy. The clips are not infallible, and you should avoid using them as a sole source because you can’t know for sure if the information is complete or correct. If at all possible, confirm the information yourself or at least talk to the reporter whose material you’re using.

If the information you’re recycling is extensive and/or you can’t confirm it, attribute it – or don’t use it.

As for recycling someone else’s language, once you’ve confirmed the facts, you should try to recast the language in your own words under most circumstances. Be careful not to introduce errors into carefully written boilerplate or wording that’s been devised to address topics that are particularly sensitive or complex.

These guidelines apply, for the most part, to what we refer to as “factual” news writing. There is no excuse for lifting another writer’s artistic prose – language that shows distinctive flair or insight, or speaks with an individual’s unique voice.

Q. If I decide I need to attribute information gleaned from the clips, how should I do it?
A. You might do it in the text of the story itself. An obit, for example, might attribute information from an old story about the deceased this way: “When The Times profiled him in 1934, Rogers said he’d never met a man he didn’t like.” To a great degree, the level of attribution depends on the extent of the material used, and its significance in the story. Taglines are another possibility. Discuss whether attribution is needed, and how it should be done, with your editor.

Taglines are another possibility. Discuss whether attribution is needed, and how it should be done, with your editor.

Q. Can I write a story for The Times on a subject I wrote about for someone else?
A. Sure, provided you do fresh reporting and writing for The Times. You shouldn’t submit for publication in The Times the same story, photo or graphic you produced for a previous employer or another publication.

Q. How do we attribute information or quotes provided to us by third parties?
Some examples would be sports quote sheets, gathered by a team and distributed to reporters, or information relayed through a pool reporter?

The media-relations departments for most major and professional teams gather quotes after games and distribute them with game statistics to reporters. The Seahawks, Mariners, Sonics and Storm do it, as do the University of Washington and Washington State University after football games. The practice is done as a service to reporters on deadline, or when logistics don’t allow a reporter to chase down every player for comment.

As a general rule, we should avoid using such quotes because they could be wrong or lack proper context. When we must rely on the sheets, we should strive to independently confirm the accuracy of the quote, either through other reporters or by obtaining and listening to the tape-recorded interview if possible.

Never use a quote that doesn’t seem right, and do not use controversial quotes without confirmation. Ask yourself, ‘Is the quote essential to the story?’ In many cases, it isn’t needed anyway.

If we do confirm the accuracy of a quote and choose to use it, always attribute it to its source. If it came from a team media-relations person, say so either in the text or in a tagline. Text Example: “They’re the best winless team we’ve ever played,” Stanford Coach Joe Schmoe told Stanford media relations officials. A tagline example would be: “Quotes from Coach Joe Schmoe were gathered by Stanford media relations.”

If the quote was told to a group of reporters and you weren’t there, but were able to confirm its accuracy, we should use the attribution “told reporters,” to indicate we were not there.

Pool reports, where a single reporter attends an event and then reports back to others, should be treated the same way. In these cases, try hard to be picked as the pool reporter. If that can’t be arranged, and the pool report is essential to the story, then say either in the text or a tagline how the information was obtained. If the material is controversial, you should consider identifying the pool reporter by name and medium.

Q. What about press releases? Can we lift information verbatim from a news release for background or boilerplate?
A. We discourage using verbatim language from news releases. Quotes from them should be attributed in the text, “…said in a news release,” or with similar language.

Q. What about e-mail? If I use information or a quote a source e-mailed me, do I need to tell readers that's the way it was obtained?
A. Yes, if it’s relevant to the story. If a source will communicate with you only by e-mail, for instance, and not face-to-face or over the phone, that's probably worth noting in the story.

Q. Sometimes we use interpreters when reporting, or rely on them to translate documents. Do we need to spell all this out for readers?
A. Yes. It's fairly easy to do in the text of a story – "Lemieux said through an interpreter that . . ." If the interpreter's role is more significant, consider crediting him/her by name in a tagline. If the interpreter has some relationship with the source, readers should be told. It's possible, for instance, that someone who's translating for a relative might edit or recast the speaker's words. Same goes for an interpreter who works for the speaker's employer.

Q. What if we're reporting breaking news, on deadline, from TV crews obviously at the site.
A. Any information we report from television must be credited in the story itself. If we are picking up information about breaking news that is being reported by several stations, we can just credit it by saying: “¡­ television news reported.” If the information we are using is being reported only by one station, and especially if it has been edited, we must identify the specific station.

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Steering clear of plagiarism

Q. Some writers who have plagiarized claim they did so unintentionally. What can we do to avoid similar problems?
A. Most high-profile cases of plagiarism are not the result of accidents, but of intent. With that in mind, there are a number of techniques that may be used to avoid plagiarizing unintentionally.

For reporters:

• Develop a note-taking method that clearly separates your observations from the thoughts and words of others. This can be done by drawing a line down the middle of your notebook, or by using different ink colors.

• Recognize that it's appropriate for your editor to ask questions about sourcing and attribution. Consider him or her a protector, not an adversary.

• If you're worried that a phrase in your story might not be original – for example, you're writing a story that you took notes for several weeks ago and you can't remember the origin of the phrase – run it through Lexis-Nexis.

• Be very wary of cutting and pasting from Web sites. Never paste information from somewhere else into a writing file without marking it somehow – different color, different font. Or print out source material and highlight what you want to use, then type it in yourself. (But it's fine to cut and paste facts like phone numbers, Web sites and addresses.)

• When you have questions about whether something might be considered plagiarism, communicate with your editor.

• When doing background research on historical facts or a complex subject, make sure you’re getting the information from at least two sources (three is better) and that they agree with one another. Read enough to understand the subject well enough to be able to put it into your own words, without having to rely on the phrasing your sources have used. Then double-check what you’ve written against your original sources, for two reasons: to make sure that what you’ve written is accurate, and to make sure you haven’t accidentally borrowed too freely from one of your original sources.

For editors:

• Practice what some papers call "skeptical" editing: ask lots of questions. Know where the reporter got the information. Don't hesitate to ask to see documents, and make sure references to them are paraphrased and attributed correctly.

• Keep tabs on reporters' workloads. Find a way to ease the load if necessary.

• Watch for unattributed information in stories that would require a degree of expertise the reporter doesn't have.

• Educate new reporters and interns on what plagiarism is.

• Be a reader first, and ask yourself what sourcing information would be helpful to readers.

• Work to understand and recognize the writing style of your reporters. If anything seems like it’s not written in a particular reporter’s “voice,” ask extra questions about where the information came from.

• If something seems amiss, you can run 8- to 12-word phrases from the story through Lexis-Nexis to make sure they haven’t been used elsewhere. (Think of this as a way to guarantee that your reporter’s words are fresh and unique!)

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Guidelines for proper attribution of wire copy

The Seattle Times subscribes to the United States’ top news services, giving us access to reports from the leading newspapers around the country, and it is common for us to compile information from several sources into one story. The principles guiding our policy on crediting news sources are twofold:

• To use the information provided by our news services to best serve Seattle Times readers.

• To maintain the integrity of our news sources, to remain true to the voice of the writer, the content and intent of the story, and to see that news services receive credit for the information they provide.

Options for crediting multiple-source stories fall into three categories: the byline; a byline and a tagline; and internal credits. Here is how we deal with attribution:

Q. Wire editors regularly combine stories. Is this problematic?
A. We should be careful not to “over-combine.” Don’t combine just because we can – any combining should serve to add clarity to the story or to add to the reader’s understanding. Also, keep in mind that information can be used effectively as a pullout box, rather than written into the story, thereby avoiding over-combining.

Q. How do I credit a story from mostly one source with data provided by another source (often The Associated Press)? For instance, a death toll, or most current wind speed, etc.
A.Use a tagline for the data, such as: Death toll provided by The Associated Press.”

Q. How do I credit a story from mostly one source that also includes a little more information from one or more other sources?
A. When it doesn’t interrupt story flow, credit the wire source in the story itself. Otherwise, use a tagline that tries to be specific, such as: Quotes from Condoleezza Rice provided by The Washington Post,” or “Background information on the NAFTA treaty provided by The Associated Press.”

Q. How do I credit a story when it contains substantial information from two sources? What if the lead is from one source, but the bulk of the story is from another source?
A. Credit with a combined byline: The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times.

Q. What about a story that equally combines material from two sources, but also includes additional information from other sources?
A. Use a combined byline, with internal credit (credit inside the story itself) or tagline for additional information.

Q. How about a story combined from three or more sources, with each source providing substantial material?
A. In such cases the byline would be Seattle Times news services, with a tagline that lists the news services.
While we try to be specific in the tagline about exactly what information came from each service, that is not always practical. Sometimes stories have been put together like a deck of cards being shuffled. Internal credits would be cumbersome, and the tagline would be too long and confusing. In this case, it might be more realistic, though not as desirable, to have a generalized tagline, such as: “Material from The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times is included in this report,” or “Compiled from reports by...”

Q. If we're so careful with everything, what about digest items? Someone had to write those, too.
A. Digest items need attribution: either “Times staff” or the wire service that sent it over.

Q. I need to make sure that the Denver Post gets credit for some interesting background in my story. There's no place to do it gracefully in the story. Can I just do it in the tagline?
A. Only news services we subscribe to can be put in taglines. If we are using material printed, or broadcast, in a source that we do not pay for, it must be credited internally. For instance, we do not have rights to use New York Times material, except for Sunday. But we can use something they have published if in the text of the story we say the information was reported by the NYT.

Q. Can I use a story posted on the Los Angeles Times Web site, for example, before the LAT-WP news service moves across the wires?
A. We cannot lift a story without permission from a newspaper Web site if the news service has not moved the story. There might be a reason the story has not been moved (perhaps it was by a freelancer), or the service might be planning to move it at a later date. Or perhaps someone at the service or the LAT was just lazy. In any event, we need to check with the service before using Web-posted stories. Phone numbers are listed in a file called “Wirephones” that can be found on Cafe’s News Desk page.

Q. What about information the L.A. Times is reporting on its Web site that the news service hasn’t moved?
A.Unless we have called the wire service and received permission to use the story, we would have to treat the information from the L.A. Times’ Web site as an outside source and credit only in the text of the story. If the wire service gives permission to use the story, we can credit the information in a tagline.

Q. Can we combine analysis pieces from different writers and wire services?
A. No. We do not combine analyses – one writer’s analysis stands by itself and should not be altered by another. However, sometimes we might need to add some background information from another source into an analysis to make it complete. This is allowed and should be attributed according to the guidelines above. We should never trim an analysis in such a way that alters the writer’s intent.

Q. In some instances it may not be important that readers know some information in a wire or staff story came from a different wire service. But shouldn't my editor, slot or copy editor be able to track that in a story?
A. Yes. When combining stories or adding information from the wires to staff-written pieces, editors and reporters should indicate the source of information bits used in the story. This can be done in “notes” mode at the beginning and end of the information.

Q. What's the proper sourcing when Times staffers add information to wire stories?
A. Local material added to a news-service story should be handled in the same fashion as material added from the wires – a tagline giving credit, with some specificity about the local reporting. Such as: “Washington state information added by Seattle Times reporter Sally Struthers.”

Q. When do I keep or delete a person's name in a byline, running only the wire service credit over a story?
A. We normally keep reporters’ names on stories. However, if an editor has substantially reworked and rearranged a story, it is up to that editor whether to keep the reporter’s name in the byline. In these cases, the editor may choose to put the reporter’s name in a tagline – “Washington Post reporting by Robin Wright.”

Q. What if different wire services are reporting different versions of the same event?
A. If we see conflicting information from wire services, we can use the conflicting information in the same story, pointing out to the reader that the services disagree. Such as:
Several wire services said guards fired on the car when it failed to stop at a checkpoint. However, Knight-Ridder News Service said its reporter witnessed the shooting, and that the vehicle was slowing and had nearly stopped when guards opened fire.

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