The Problem of Plagiarism

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“Plagiarism is bad” isn't a definition, but (coming from a public high school) that might be all you've ever been taught. There's not much being done to keep students from plagiarizing in their high school courses. Teachers of junior and senior English classes work the hardest at stopping plagiarism. Still, most of us have no concept of why we shouldn't plagiarize. Then we come to college where we are faced with things like academic honesty committees and honor courts; those days of cut and paste writing assignments are over. So, what is plagiarism, other than bad? What do you do to keep from plagiarizing? And how might your professors bust you?

Plagiarism is basically theft of written intellectual property. “What's intellectual property?” you ask. Dictionary.com defines intellectual property as “the ownership of ideas and control over the tangible or virtual representation of those ideas. Use of another person's intellectual property may or may not involve royalty payments or permission, but should always include proper credit to the source” (http://www.dictionary.com). If you fail to give proper credit, then you have plagiarized.

Wilson Mizner once said, “Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research,” (Campus Planner). At first, this seems purely humorous, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. If you write a paper, and all you do is copy the thoughts and opinions of one person, then you are plagiarizing. Even if you avoid plagiarism by siting your resource properly, you're not getting a good grade -- all you are doing is copying someone's work. If, on the other hand, you take the ideas and opinions from multiple sources, give proper credit and make your own connections with the...

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...ation. If you are looking to learn lessons for life, then learn how to play fair and give credit where credit is due. If you are actually in college to learn from books, then you won't plagiarize because your teachers and text books tell you not to. And even if you are only in college to have a good time, remember this, the party is over if you flunk out or are expelled.

Works Cited

1999-2000 Campus Planner. CSA Inc. Dayton, Ohio.

Hinchliffe, Lisa. "Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism: Preventing, Detecting and Tracking Online Plagiarism." May 1998. Online. http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~janicke /plagiary.htm (12 Oct.1999)

Hults, Pat. "Plagiarism." Online. http://www.cobleskill.edu/Irc/Ethics/plagiarism.html. (12 Oct. 1999)

"Intellectual Property." March 27, 1997. http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=Intellectual%20property. (28 Sept 1999)

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