Mauer 1 Plagiarism is defined by California State University at Long Beach as the act of using the ideas or work of another

person or persons as if they were one's own, without giving credit to the source. This is typical of what you would hear anyone classify plagiarism or cheating as. This is especially the case in the current day schooling system where plagiarism is most highly enforced. The schooling system just passes the clear-cut definition of plagiarism down from generation to generation without really evaluating whether or not plagiarism is as bad as people seem to think it is. This continuation of passing this stigma that plagiarism is bad in our society when it is really not just makes the problem worse and worse. I bet you have never really thought about what plagiarism consists of. Is it changing the words around in someone else s sentence? Is it copying word for word a sentence? Coping a paper? Taking someone s ideas? Saying a person s quote without acknowledging them? Plagiarism is literally any words or ideas that you write or say without giving acknowledgement to the person or people that have said it before you. The American population has always been taught that plagiarism is wrong without really looking into what it entails, and maybe how it should be viewed. I do not think that plagiarism should be such a big deal in American society. Now back to the definition of plagiarism. Most of you readying this article read right over my definition of plagiarism without even realizing that it s plagiarized. Yes, it is taken word for word from the California State University of Long Beach website. And, I bet that if you got this far in my article you did not throw down this paper in disgust from me copying directly from a website showing that plagiarism really does

Mauer 2 not have any negative effects on my integrity as a writer. And I know that that fact is true based on my experience from all of my years of schooling. The teachers in the public school system in the United States are not spending the time or their resources to help kids truly evaluate what should and should not be considered plagiarism and if the current view of plagiarism in society should change. In schools teachers just give the brief lecture saying, don t plagiarize. In my opinion this way of going about it is very wrong because it does not give the students an opportunity to evaluate whether or not today s view of plagiarism is valid. All it is doing is confusing the kids or leaving an empty space about what plagiarism consists of, therefore making not important. Kids are stuck with the questions such as, Can I put something word for word in quotes? Can I just phrase a sentence differently than it s already written? How will they really know if I plagiarize? All of these questions can lead students to plagiarize accidentally because they did not how to site or word something so it would not be considered plagiarism. If this happens it causes teachers to falsely accuse students of plagiarizing. In Baily s article The Role of Schools in Fighting Plagiarism, he states that teachers will come to him all the time with a students work that they think is plagiarized, and will ask for his review. After all of his reviews he has never found that a paper was plagiarized, just similar in format and style of writing to another piece of work. When teachers make these accusations, all they go off of is weather or not they think the paper is original . As Martin says in his article Plagiarism and Originality: Some Remedies, if teachers really believe in not plagiarizing, then they

Mauer 3 would not take any work that is consider to-be a product. The reason for this is because it is not completely the student s own and original thoughts. Which leads me into my next argument, that almost nothing you say or write is original . Everything that we write in a paper or our ideas for how we will go about structuring that paper can be considered plagiarism and not our own original thoughts. In Martin s article, he brings up the idea of if a student imitates an authors writing style or a previously learned idea, or simply are the students plagiarizing just by using the English language. Martin also states that the teacher s are leading by bad example by making tons of copies of papers and worksheets that are under a copyright law. Here is a great example of why we shouldn t take plagiarism so seriously because of all the copyright laws millions of people nonchalantly break everyday. Martin has brought up a good point here. Have you ever heard of a teacher saying that everything you write is plagiarized? My guess is that you have not because if they did kids would just not care if they plagiarize because what s the difference. This is something that teachers need to fix. They need to teach the kids that everything could possibly be plagiarism, but how to use it in a way that does not get them into trouble. Students get very worried about if they have plagiarized or not, and in turn teachers are over carful and dwell on catching students plagiarizing more than grading the paper. Teachers are inevitably encouraging students to plagiarize by tell them to take ideas from readings and textbooks. If our society thinks that it is so important to teach the idea of stealing another persons words for a paper, then why have we never emphasized that stealing the ideas for setting that paper up or copying the formatting of a

Mauer 4 distinguished writer to be so wrong? Martin brings this point up in his article of weather or not this is considered plagiarism. In my opinion, I think that if you teach the idea that all plagiarism is bad and that s it s so important not to plagiarize anything ever. But then you go and tell your students to get ideas from a book on how to write something I think that s just as bad. The over emphasis on not plagiarizing has lead me to think if you are going to emphasize the idea that much about plagiarism then why not emphasize the copying of ideas and styles to? The answer to this question is that people do not want to believe that this idea of everything is plagiarism is true because then the idea of copying an idea would also have to be enforced, which would make writing meaningless. This would lead to the recognition that all writing is plagiarism and make people realize that we have been over emphasizing it, and being to picky about it. To make my point more clear, let s compare writing to art. In some views writing is an art form. Than, why isn t it ok for writing ideas and styles to be copied when it s acceptable in art or design. Artists and Designers take ideas from one another and build off them to create their own interpretation of art and design. It is deemed flattery when artists copy the style of another because that means that they appreciate that style of art. In writing, if you take someone s idea and add onto and make tweaks to it, it is considered to be plagiarism. Howard says it the best in her article Plagiarism, Authorship, and The Academic Death Penalty, when she says, No longer do we have originators and plagiarists-or giants or pygmies-but the collective, always unfinished text.

Mauer 5 I think that writers would be much better off if they took on the idea of writing like art and appreciate when people add on to their ideas. This would not hurt the written work of other writers, but it would help other writers find direction and build on other writer s ideas. I strongly believe that the stigma that taking others written work is unacceptable needs to change in the public s eyes. It needs to be passed onto the next generation as an idea that does not need to be so harsh, negative, and over emphasized. People, especially writers should not fear using others work, but learn to appreciate sharing ideas and writing styles without the persecution of plagiarism.

Mauer 6 Works Sited Bailey, Jonathan. "The Role of Schools in Fighting Plagiarism | Plagiarism Today." Content Theft, Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement | Plagiarism Today. 28 Sept. 2008. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. <http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2008/09/25/the-role-of-schoolsin-fighting-plagiarism/>.

Howard, Moore R. Plagiarism, Authorship, and The Academic Death Penalty. College English, Vol. 57, No. 7 (1995), 788-807.

Martin, R.G. Plagiarism and Originality: Some Remedies. The English Journal, Vol. 60, No. 5, (1971): 621-625+628.

"2010-2011 CSULB Catalog - Cheating and Plagiarism." California State University, Long Beach. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. <http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/catalog/20102011/academic_information/cheating_plagiarism.html>.