“Plagiarism” was the label given to me at the age of sixteen. I was accused of plagiarism but felt like a fraud to me. For me my paper was not the reason why I was a fraud, instead it felt like it was me being judged. “Dishonest, fraud, criminal, and unprincipled” were the terms that were being placed with my name by others in my high school where people believed the untruthful act was performed. People who knew me such as my teachers, administrators, and fellow classmates were creating an untruthful image in their minds as they stopped interacting with me. I was a junior in High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture a highly known high school constructed to educate students with different ethnicity and accepting all. …show more content…
I felt like they wanted me to be like others with poor grades obtaining a grade of 65 and 70. However, I knew that wasn’t the true Mandeep, instead I was smart, knowledgeable, and proud of who I am and what I write about. The knowledge that I put on paper was the knowledge that I actually possess, not what I obtained illegally. My entire class was questioning me like I was a criminal and that I did the crime. However, I decided to stay strong and respond to each person that I am not dishonest and it is not my fault and that I can write. As it was Monday morning a rainy and dull day made it seem like the sun was not going to shine today. However, as I walked up the stairs to the fourth floor the “click click” of my flats were annoying me and made me feel like I was going to fall any second. As I entered room 432, the first thing I viewed was the blue bulletin board with other student essays with the heading stating “perfection” on it. I walked passed by the board in anger wanting to ripe it down because my essay was not posted there. “Mandeep, Mandeep” the administers and staff said wanting to seek my attention from the lost world I was in. As I sat down my heart started to pound again but this time at a slow pace. “Mandeep, after reviewing your essay the administrators of the schools and teachers found out that the paper was not plagiarized instead was above grade level and would be kept as a set example for upcoming juniors” said Mr. Drazic. These words coming out of his mouth made me happy externally but still made me feel unsettled me think that the image that Mr. Drazic created about me was never going to be eliminated. As the year progressed and I wrote many more writing pieces I would always suspect myself thinking that did I write so perfect that I would make him think that I plagiarized
It is absolutely clear that you feel sad when somebody cheated and duplicate your own things. This causes many people to feel frustration and getting upset when they are facing this difficult situation. We know it is not a good attitude for students, authors, and anyone else to use something misappropriate that they didn’t belong it. I read an article that called “When the Story Stolen is Your Own”. When the author Sherman Alexie was writing this article, he was feeling nervous because somebody has stolen his article and use it in his own. Nobody didn’t believe him when he told the publisher that his story was stolen by someone and imitate that he belong it. Same as the students when they cheated each other and submit the same paper, it was one of the biggest challenge that happens some of the students when they are in the college.
The better educated you are, the better off you are socially, and economically. Having a degree is, in general, a good indicator of your level of education. To get it some students study very hard. Others, on the contrary, prefer to take some shortcuts that seem to be easier for them. Those, not so much interested in acquiring a solid education, simply want to plagiarize to pass their classes, to get that degree. Plagiarism spreads out through any level of our education system. It even extends beyond that limit to reach almost any aspect of our society. With the internet revolution, this problem becomes more acute. “The web has provided global access to an unfathomable cornucopia of term papers, essays, and other scholarly works, right there out in the open for purchase or outright theft” (Simonson, Smaldino, & Zvacek, 2015, p. 160). This paper will discuss the different types of plagiarism. Before getting deeper into that discussion, we will start by explaining the word plagiarism.
Simply defined, the word plagiarism means "the unauthorized use of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own" ("Plagiarism"). While many students understand and comprehend the first clause of this definition, many encounter problems with the second part - the thoughts part. Many students in today's educational system are frequently unable to develop their own thoughts, opinions, and ideas relating to the subject matter that they are studying. However, when people at a university are educated according to the ways set forth by John Henry Newman in "The Idea of a University," their ability to create original concepts would be cultivated to the point, where they do not feel the need to plagiarize and cheat. Newman also states that in the end, the university will produce citizens that can give back to society (48). Jeffrey Hart makes a similar point in "How to Get a College Education." Therefore, according to both Newman and Hart, an honest person will be fashioned by the university. Since honesty does not breed cheating, should not cheating then be minimized? Plagiarism and its sister cheating are plagues on society that only serve to corrupt it. Nevertheless, the education given by a university can diminish and, perhaps, even eradicate the disease by instilling in students, a sense of honor, and implementing harsh penalties on those caught cheating or plagiarizing.
Plagiarism is the copying of another individual’s writings and ideas. Plagiarism is an idea that has been constructed by society. It revolves around society’s ideas of intellectual and private property. It is considered to be a form of cheating. Often times in elementary schools and high schools, plagiarism is discussed as bad but is not actually prevented. Teachers often do not detect plagiarism and even when they do, sometimes it is ignored. The student is then rewarded with a good grade, ingraining within the student that it is acceptable to plagiarize. Plagiarism affects the ways an individual develops as a person and as a writer.
Plagiarism is stealing, cheating and just plain wrong. When you think of plagiarism, you probably just think of someone copying and pasting information from the Internet. But did you know that people can also plagiarize songs and not just information from the internet? Take Justin Bieber for example. He was sued back in 2013 for $10 million for copyright infringement. He supposedly stole lyrics from "two Virginia songwriters who claim that Bieber's song "Somebody to Love" contains numerous lyrical and stylistic similarities to the song they wrote in 2008 by the same name." (NY Daily News. Justin Bieber, Usher sued for $10 million for copyright infringement. February 06, 2014.)
They show their view of plagiarism clearly in their documents through the use of terms such as “without hesitation” and “will not be tolerated” (Student code of conduct and discipline, 2015, p. 6; 9. Academic Honesty, n.d.). Many college students try to find out the ways how to avoid being accused of committing a serious academic offence as much as they can. Putting their own name on someone else’s works and getting good grades, some of them might succeed cleverly, but it is nothing but dishonesty. Both colleges warn students the consequences of plagiarism strongly, saying it can bring negative
The book, Other People’s Words: What Plagiarism Is and How to Avoid it, has taught me many things about plagiarism. Some of the things this book taught me are the definition and some ways to avoid plagiarism.
A person’s ethics can be seen in their everyday life. Ethics are the morals someone lives their life by. Merriam-Webster defines ethic as “rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad.” The ethics that someone shows helps describe their personal character and refer to the way that person acts in personal and socials relationships.
Is it educators who should be blamed for the huge number of students paying for everything from one page responses to their professors to complete thesis dissertations. Is it the lazy or incapable students fault? Aren’t the “Papermill” companies that supply the resources that actually complete the work the ones to blame? I think it's fairly obvious that this kind of business is unethical. . I would never think about paying someone to write a paper for me, because then I would be cheating myself out of my own education. While we are pointing fingers, maybe the blame should be on the parents of the students for not teaching them any morals and letting them think that cheating is acceptable.
Craft’s class is where my story comes into action about how and why I began to dislike any form of essay or short story assignments. Even though the class was originally supposed to be an art class, I ended up writing more essays in that class than in my English class. Not having an actual art class bummed me out since I was really good at drawing. I wasn’t the only student who did not like Mrs. Craft. Statistics showed that 67% of our class had a lowered GPA due to her course. The statistics were given out during a board meeting to discuss what should be done about the situation. My father was and still is a board member at Orangeburg Preparatory School and that is how I discovered those stats. The essay that changed my opinion on ever wanting to write another essay was titled, “Where Would We Be without the Hindenburg.” This essay was supposed to be about a significant part of the Holocaust past that had to be at least five pages. It was only the rough draft, and yet I clearly remember getting the paper back with no marks on it at all. The grade I received for the “Rough Draft” was a seventy. I never thought you could be graded harshly on a rough draft. I asked her what was wrong with my essay since she had not placed any marks on my paper. Mrs. Craft said, “Figure it out yourself since you are the one who made the errors.” So, I went back to my desk with a disgusted feeling in my
My heart palpation starts to accelerate, hands start to tremble, eyes start to water, vision becomes blurry, voices start to intrude my mind, pounding down hard on me, all because of a grade. Entering high school, I had set a goal for myself, which was to achieve all A’s in all marking cycles. Yet, when I participated in the three week summer program, my past served no importance. I saw myself as someone who did not expect to fail, someone who would give it their all to achieve it all, yet this sanctuary of comfort shattered into pieces. Within the summer program, I had a STEM Design and an African American Literature course. I, along with my team members, designed a solar power car, but it failed. I analyzed the language of Frederick Douglass
Knowing that the first letter a school sends home over the summer is the report card, I nervously teared open the end of the letter. After pulling out and unfolding my report card, I reacted with shock and disappointment. On my report card that had shown the result of my hard work, determination, and effort, I saw that I was a few numbers away from failing my final. I had worked so hard to do well or at least get a decent. At first, I was angry that I worked so hard for a horrible grade that people get when they do not try.
Plagiarism is when someone steals or copies someone else’s work without giving credit to the original owner. As soon as someone else’s work has been used citation is required in order to show that it is made by the original creator. There are many types of ways of plagiarism. Such as find-replace, 404 error, duplicate and hybrid.
First my attitude had to changed for this class. When this happened I started taking extra time in my assignments and in my reading. This happen when I turned my paper in a different format and my teacher could not open it. She gave me a bad grade. Then I question why I had got a bad grade because according to my believes I had done a good job on the essay. She then told me because I did not send it to her properly and she could not open it. So I resend it and instead of checking to make sure she could open it. I forgot to check. Two weeks later I check my email and I saw a message form my teacher saying it was not acceptable that she had given me time to turn it in and I had not. That incident made me think about how much time I was putting into my classes. So I managed to make it into a PDF document and send it to her but by that time I had already made my grade drop.That incident had the most impact on me and in all my classes, especially in my English class. It told me that I need to check
Plagiarism is a serious offense and a growing trend in our society today. Some may associate plagiarism with the idea of taking someone else’s writing and making it their own. In fact plagiarism involves anything that is copied or taken and said to be of your own work. Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work, as by not crediting the author”. In fact this definition covers all types of cheating and misrepresentation of ones own work. There are many numbers and statistics that can be found on the amount of individuals that have admitted to cheating. Perhaps the most astounding number is one that was reported by Moeck in 2002 aloft of 40% of higher education students commit academic dishonesty. This number I’m sure has grown since this report and will continue to grow with the development of the Internet. There are a number of ideas and strategies that can be employed in order to stop this ever-growing phenomenon. As teachers and adults, we are responsible for stopping this trend and educating students about the consequences and dangers of plagiarism. I believe there are a variety of reasons individuals plagiarize. First, students are insecure with their own ability; they don’t believe they can do the work therefore they take others. Second, students believe they can get away with the act because they know others who have plagiarized, and there were not any consequences. Lastly, students are uneducated on what plagiarism is and do not know the consequences of their actions if they commit an act. These ideas will be the focus of the position taken on plagiarism in today’s academic society.