The act of using someone else's ideas, words, or both and unclearly acknowledging that source of the information is the definition of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a difficult subject as it is not always black and white. It can be, however, say, if for example a person purchases essays or sections from an online source and uses those words completely as his or her own. But plagiarism does not always signify guilt as there is acceptable plagiarism which lye in the form of unintentional lack of complete and full citing. This occurs very frequently as people tend to paraphrase or summarize other's works into their own words while in the process not realizing that these new words still skew too closely to the original text and thus are deemed as plagiarized (library.Illinois.edu). The origin of the word plagiarism derives from the early 17th century Latin word plagiarius, meaning 'kidnapper' (oxforddictionaries.com)
However, the history of the concept of plagiarism or academic dishonesty can be rooted all the way back to when man could first compile words into an assimilated fashion of meaning. For example, most religious text date back to ancient times and most were without authors and were freely copied and incorporated within future texts. However, during the Renaissance, individuality among scholarship shifted and thus personal achievement became much more highly valued in society. So naturally during this time period accusations of plagiarism began to arise in nearly all creative fields. In 1709, the premiere English copyright law was passed and so set forth the unscrupulous effort to thwart potential plagiarism before it even begins (hygeiajournal.com). Thus with continuing newfound laws on copyright infringement and piracy, a new standard was set in place to ensure that all original authors are accredited when it rightfully calls for such. This new forming of accreditation allowed for new possibilities in creating textual adherence for varying cultures. One such example would be The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage To America 1492-1493. On the front cover of the diary, it acknowledges first Christopher Columbus in the title, then states that it was abstracted by Fray Bartolome De Las Casas and then that it was "transcribed and translated into English, with notes and a concordance of the Spanish," by Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley, Jr. Accreditation is used also throughout in the ensuing pages of the diary but just from the front cover alone it is seen how acknowledgement is vastly important in identifying specific contributors as well as how it has become essential in bringing historical text