Literary Arts (Aug 2014)
From Tavarod to Plagiarism
Abstract
Abstract “Plagiarism” has been one of the important subjects in the field of literary criticism and argued in the press and meetings from past till now. Today, there isn't any day and month that will go by without seeing a case in this field being presented or claimed in books, journals or newspapers. However, thanks to the expanse of operation and wide scope of the Judiciary, mentioned claims are studied in Judicial courts as well (you can just search “Plagiarism” in Google search engine, and then you will encounter with hundred different pages on this subject). In countries that they have copyright rule, this subject is taken into account seriously and if someone adapts a subject or extracts some text from another one's, without mentioning its reference, he will be punished firmly in accordance with rules and regulations. Despite the importance of this subject in literary criticism, unfortunately it is not considered as it deserves in our country. Regardless of definition and categorization of Plagiarism by rhetoricians, there is disagreement for making decision whether a Plagiarism is happened or it is some other cases such as Tavarod (occurrence of one thought in two persons' minds) or Intertextuality. Considering the fact that contents and concepts are common between people in every inches of our planet, it is so hard to determine and prove that someone is innovator and creator of concept or content and if someone else uses the same content, he is copying the original creator. We know that sometimes the same word or phrase comes to the minds of two persons accidentally, so accusing somebody of plagiary should be done with care and comprehensive study and it should be provable. In other words, definition of Plagiarism boundaries based on rate of uniformity and similarity of terms and concepts of two works is very hard and the border between plagiarism and Tavarod is very narrow and skeptical.
