“Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age” New York Times journalist, Trip Gabriel, puts into perspective students ability to use their creativity throughout their academic career in “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age.” This article discusses issues of plagiarism in the digital age, especially through college students. There are different perspectives from various people either attending college or professors that argue why plagiarism occurs. Whether it’s because of laziness, unpreparedness going into college, originality, or authorship not taken into consideration. Overall, this article infers the different standpoints of plagiarism, demonstrating the ease the digital age gives students to plagiarize, and the importance …show more content…
Plagiarism as Ms. Wilensky, an undergraduate of Indiana University, is like that, “you’re not coming up with new ideas if you’re grabbing and mixing and matching.” Plagiarism doesn’t allow the reader to know how someone truly feels about a subject, it is assumed that they need to have a certain view or idea to be considered correct. I agree with Ms. Wilensky, she understands that plagiarism in academia, “does not foster creativity, it fosters laziness.” If students are “taught to synthesize (information) into their own original argument . . . you’re not tempted to plagiarize in college.” (Wilensky) Allowing students to voice their opinion is crucial in academia, so conflict of plagiarism does not arise in college and lead to expulsion. Though, the shift from high school to college can be …show more content…
Blum of the University of Notre Dame states, "undergraduates are less interested in cultivating a unique and authentic identity, than in trying on many different personas, which the Web enables with social networking," which correlates with plagiarism in the digital age, usually in middle and high school students are forced into the traditionally strict five-paragraph essay with no opinion on the topic, whatsoever. Their only resource for concrete information is digital technology. However, once their opinion is inquired, difficulties to break away from the five-paragraph essay, and giving one 's opinion arise. As a first year college student, being told to “put in your oar,” or one’s opinion still taking into consideration other person 's views, joining the conversation in one 's essay is something completely new. In high school, students were told “ the one’s reading your essay don’t care about your opinion, they just want the facts, period.” Even though it may be difficult at first because one may care too much what others think and may not be putting in their oar but build upon others ideas/views. It 's refreshing knowing one has the ability to voice their opinion and join the conversation, even if the essay will be graded. Without the proper use of digital technology, students are prone to commit plagiarism that can detrimental to their future. I say, there are many positives to the digital age and that if the conversation of plagiarism started
In Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
If anything is held to the highest value in any array of schools, it is a policy against plagiarism. Academics understand the severity that plagiarism can hold, especially since many of them tend to do it to each other. In 2005, Melissa Elias, who was at the time the President of the Madison School Board, gave a commencement speech that had several sections that were plagiarized from a speech Anna Quindlen, a Pulitzer Prize winner author, had given to Mount Holyoke in 1999. Kaavya Viswanathan, a Harvard University Sophomore, had published a book with several portions of copied from works of four different authors. Individuals held at high academic expectations committed both of these incidents, one being the president of a school and the other being a student of an Ivy League University. However, despite their valor in academia they both plagiarized, the only difference being that Viswanathan was getting royalties for her act of plagiarism. One has to question whether there really is a difference between these two cases, because both individuals clearly intentionally plagiarized. When handling cases of plagiarism one has to be extremely cautious due to the various degrees of plagiarism that depend on the individual’s intentionality and regards to profit.
It is a random Thursday night on the first floor of Brewster Hall and the Campus of State University when a frazzled young girl wanders into the room of a fellow student inquiring about The Stranger by Albert Camus. She needs to have a three page paper completed by tomorrow and cannot find a kick start on the essay writing process. Since her peers are on the level of the common doormat concerning Camus, she was left without any further help. However, had she just typed “the stranger, camus” into Google, three of the first ten sites listed would have directed her to either free or paid essay sites.
First, we must understand the history of plagiarism and the problem many instructors have in separating original thinking from collaborative thinking (that which is influenced by those who have come before). Western thought traces its roots to the great civilizations of Classical Greece and Rome. The nature of much writing from this period up into the 19th Century was ...
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.
However, this defeats the whole purpose of school. If students are plagiarizing to get by, not only is there no creativity and originality, but it would not benefit them going on in the real world. It will not teach them how to use their brain to think critically on what they are doing. Depending on the severity of the plagiarism, consequences can vary. Some of these consequences could be getting kicked out of college, losing your position at a corporation or institution and possibly running into the risk of finding employment
The article Cybercheats clearly shows the cause/use of plagiarism. Students of all ethnic backgrounds use plagiarism. However it also shows how most schools are trying to crack down. Two employees from National Institutes of Health actually have a program that can decode essays that may have some sort of plagiarism. It is clearly obvious that the students who do indeed use this from of cheating have no real values. As Michael Miller, a teacher at Georgetown University, says, "It's really up to the individual reader to do with the information what they will, good or evil. I belong to a school that says teach people to do the right thing and then turn'em loose." It seems that if you are adult enough to actually attend collage then you are adult enough to handle the pressures and responsibilities that come along with it. For most cases the use of plagiarism is clearly used by students who don't know the value/capabilities of there own. They also aren't usually aware of the consequences.
Trip Gabriel, a reporter for the New York Times specializing in articles about education and politics, argues in this article, “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age” about how creativity and originality is under threat because students prefer to copy content off the internet without acknowledging original sources. The article raises some valid points but glosses over the fact that nothing is ever original: every new idea or thought is inspired by or an improvement over an old idea or thought.
Many students are using technology to cheat because they are able to find answers quickly online by just searching for them. Cheating is increasing in the United States at higher rates because many of the students in high school or in college have to deal with different responsibilities, pressure, and loads of different types of work. Richard Perez Peña states in “Studies Find More Students Cheating,” “Internet access has made cheating easier, enabling students to connect instantly with answers, friends to consult and works to plagiarize.” Plagiarism, which means using a work of someone else as if it were yours, is the most common form of cheating in high school and in college. Plagiarism occurs by not citing a source correctly or by not putting the proper quotation marks on a quote that you borrow to state your point. Some students don’t even know what plagiarism is, and they do it using the technology that we have today. Therefore, Julie Rasicot states, “High schools and teachers should make clear what constitutes plagiarism, how to avoid it and what the consequences will be if students are caught.” If students are not informed about plagiarism, then they tend to use technology as an easy way to do an assignment, which prevents them from learning. On the other hand, many professors have argued that the technology is developing
Plagiarism, or the unaccredited use of another's work or ideas, has become more and more of a problem in recent times than it was in the past. According to statistics found in a survey conducted by the Free Press, 58% of high school students let someone copy their work in 1969, but by 1989 this number had risen to 97%. The expansion of the World Wide Web and the number of people accessing the Web on a regular basis has caused an epidemic of plagiarism in this country, especially among students. This is a serious problem that must be addressed because many students feel that if they are not getting in trouble for cheating, than it is okay.
One aspect of the creative industry that has remained the same throughout generations is the difficulty for artists to inject their work into popular culture. Utopian Plagiarism, Hypertextuality, and Electronic Cultural Production by Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) written in 1991 argues that “The Video revolution failed for two reasons – a lack of access and an absence of desire” (99) while artists from the documentary Press. Pause. Play. point out how easy access is to creative technology. The artists from PPP point out that it is much more difficult for good work to breakthrough into popular culture because there is so much of it. Comparing the arguments by CAE with the ideas in PPP reveals that artists breaking through into popular culture has always been difficult, but it is difficult today for different reasons than it used to be. For this reason, quality plagiarism is essential in the creative industry.
Plagiarism is defined in the dictionary as "appropriating as one’s own the writing, ideas, etc. of another". Plagiarism.org goes into more detail when it defines plagiarism as "the improper use, or failure to attribute, another person's writing or ideas (intellectual property). It can be as subtle as the inadvertent neglect to include quotes or references when citing another source or as blatantly unethical as knowingly copying an entire paper verbatim and claiming it as your own work." I believe they make this longer definition on a web page because plagiarism has become a bigger problem since the creation of the Internet. The Internet is a fast easy way to cheat on papers and ideas. It is incredibly simple to download entire term papers for free or for a small fee. Sometimes you don’t have to pay for a complete essay. Sometimes submitting your own essay is all you need to do to gain someone else’s work. Term paper mills have become a popular activity among high school and college students. If you look up forgery-encouraging web pages, it is easy to see that there are many options for getting effortless information and material off of the Internet.
Plagiarism is a very serious topic to be dealt with, due to the fact that it can damage one’s future very severely. It is done often by students in high school and other institutes such as universities and colleges. People plagiarize intentionally and sometimes even unintentionally. The people who plagiarize intentionally are people who don’t really care about their future and career. The people who plagiarize unintentionally are people who do not cite their work properly and completely. Most people that plagiarize do not get a good mark and most likely have to face consequences such as failure, suspension or the chance of being expelled. In conclusion it is believed that one should not put his/her future at risk and try to expand their mind through the process of critical thinking independently, so they do not have to make the mistake of plagiarizing.
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.