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My understanding is that the toughest standard regarding plagiarism is the "five (consecutive) word" rule, which holds that, if there are five consecutive words identical to someone else's writing...
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plagiarism
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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/7546 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
My understanding is that the toughest standard regarding plagiarism is the "five (consecutive) word" rule, which holds that, if there are five consecutive words identical to someone else's writing, then you are guilty of plagiarism. This does not apply to, say, proper names like "The Loyal Order of Freemasons", which is considered one word, not five, but what about proverbs or trite expressions such as "My country right or wrong"? My further understanding is that there are also "looser" standards for determining plagiarism (for example, ten or twenty consecutive "copied" words). When do such standards apply, and when does the five word standard apply?