Stealing someone’s words isn’t the same as stealing someone’s television. The original author doesn’t have to run to Best Buy to get a new paragraph.

But ideas and words are professors’ stock and trade. Unlike the company president who steals sentences for a Rotary Club speech, or the congressman who pilfers phrases for a campaign brochure, the professor who plagiarizes undermines his very profession. —Bartlett and Smallwood —Four Academic Plagiarists You’ve Never Heard Of: How Many More Are Out There? (Chronicle)