• Calvin Theological Seminary
• |
• Contact Us

• Sign Up for Monthly Updates

• This Week in Preaching
• Lent & Easter 2008 Resources
• Conference & Seminar Listings
• Sermon Starter Archives
• The Preachers' Oasis
• On Preaching by Scott Hoezee
• Podcast and Audio Sermons
• Faculty Statement on Excellence in Preaching
• Church Planter Resources
• Find Learning Opportunities
• Online Lecture Archive
• Prepare the Calendar
• Encounter the Text
• "What I Have Discovered"
• Discover Fresh Reading
• Resources for Congregations
• Application for Graduate Homiletics Scholarships
• On Plagiarism

A Word on Plagiarism

By Scott Hoezee

There are few things as heartening as seeing your own words quoted approvingly by an author in a book or by a preacher in a sermon. But this good coin has a flipside: there are few things as nettling as having your own words come back at you without having the source acknowledged. In short, plagiarism hurts. What's more, plagiarism is a two-edged sword: it wounds the person who gets quoted but not credited. Then again, plagiarism is a stain on the professional reputation of the one caught in the act, too.

The CEP website exists for one purpose: to provide preachers with resources, illustrations, sermon-starter ideas, and other materials in the hope that this material will most certainly end up in sermons. We pastors are all in this together, after all. It's fitting that we help each other and share resources.

Nevertheless . . . all of us pastors who visit this website or who find our way to online sermons are on our own recognizance in terms of acknowledging where we found something. True, no one wants a sermon to sound like it's full of footnotes. Sometimes it's enough to say early in a sermon that you found some really useful ideas in an article by Kathleen Norris or at the CEP website. If you acknowledge your debt to such a source at one point in the sermon, then even if you later slip in some more of that same material, it's not necessary to mention the source again (or if you do, it can be as short as, "To again quote Ms. Norris . . ." or some such brief citation).

The vast majority of people in the pew know that even the best preachers borrow from other writers, thinkers, and preachers all the time. In fact, people are often impressed that their preacher knows enough to look to others for help. Acknowledging our sources is not a sign of weakness but strength and wisdom.

If the CEP website, its content, articles, and ideas are useful to you, then we at Calvin Theological Seminary praise God! But for your own sake, we ask that you make brief mention of your debt to this site and to its many contributors.