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Playing With Plagiarism

Written By Joey Smart Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like copying and borrowing can disguise the seriousness of the offense ( What is Plagiarism ). This quote really got me thinking, What if people really don t understand the problem of copying and pasting from another writers work? A lot of students do not understand completely how to cite their sources for their papers correctly, which leads to plagiarism. This is one of the biggest reasons students are found plagiarizing. To most of the public, plagiarizing is not that big of a deal. Nobody thinks of the possibility that they will get caught, and if they do, they believe they will not get in any trouble. And this is why students find it okay to cheat on their schoolwork. However, this is not acceptable, not to mention, illegal. Using other writers work is not a problem when it comes down to needing resources and information, but copying and not giving credibility to the author is becomes a problem. But, a lot of the time the writer doesn t know how to avoid plagiarizing. For this reason I don t think that the public should be blamed in some instances. Sometimes it is obvious that the writer intently plagiarized, such as copying an entire article word for word. But in order to prevent plagiarism from happening completely, the public needs to understand the consequences behind plagiarism and how to prevent it. Plagiarism is a big subject to talk about in schools whenever students need to write papers. Before the students start writing, the teacher usually warns them of the consequences if they do plagiarize. Even though the teacher informs the students of the possible consequences for plagiarizing, teachers still worry about finding plagiarism in their papers. As a beginning teacher, I probably would have accused students of plagiarism and refused to take their papers, but experience has shown me that the majority of students do not cheat (Kuhn, Bertha M.). Bertha Kuhn found it hard to fail her students for cheating, so she started to find an alternative way to handle it. She decided to give the students constructive criticism about their note taking. Most teachers are starting to believe that students are not

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intentionally trying to plagiarize; they just need to learn how to take better notes and to cite correctly. Not everybody believes that the plagiarizers should get away without being punished. In Bobby Elliott s website, he writes, Teachers can try to reduce plagiarism and ensure that flagrant abuses are caught and punished. Elliott was criticizing the fact of how many college students actually get away with plagiarizing, and he believes that this should be stopped immediately. Elliott also goes on to say that if somebody plagiarizes, whether it was on purpose or not, they should be punished regardless (Elliott, Bobby). In her article, Responding to Plagiarism, Alice Drum does not think that college students know enough to avoid using plagiarism. Most rhetoric textbooks are of little help in this respect (Drum, Alice) She may think that college students are clueless when it comes to writing, but she may be correct! The fact is, many college students go into college having little or no knowledge regarding plagiarism because they didn t gain much knowledge with citing sources correctly in high school. When you are stuck at a point while you are writing, would you ask some body for help in order to get back on your feet again? If you do, ask them what to do to keep going, and make sure that nobody tries to change your work. It doesn t matter if it is your best friend, your girlfriend, or even your mother; don t let them change your work. This problem is called collusion, and believe it or not, it s a type of plagiarism and very easy to spot (Allen, Sarah). Suppose you re a writer that uses a lot of commas on your first paper, but on your second paper you started using more semicolons; it becomes pretty obvious to see that it s not your use of punctuation. As I was going through middle school and high school, plagiarism was a topic that was always brought up when we started writing papers. And it also seemed that somebody was always getting punished for plagiarism whether they knew they did it or not. In the instances where they meant to cheat, they deserve to be punished. But I have seen students get an F on a paper because they plagiarized without knowing it. In order to help the people that don t quite understand most of plagiarism, the categories that explain the different kinds of plagiarism are using sources without citing, and citing your sources incorrectly ( What Is Plagiarism? ).

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The biggest reason that students are found plagiarizing is because they use sources without citing. This could be because students simply do not know how to cite their sources correctly, or they may just be lazy. This can be fixed though if the students know what they are doing wrong. One type of plagiarism under the category using sources without citing is known as The Poor Disguise . This type of plagiarism is where somebody takes important words or phrases from another writers work and fits them into their writing, along with other resourceful content, which is called paraphrasing ( What Is Plagiarism? ). This is one of the most commonly used ways of plagiarism because students think they can get away with doing it this way if they can hide key words within the rest of their paper. The way to fix this mishap is to put a citation of the author at the end of the sentence or paragraph, depending on how much information was used from another text. For example: Using plagiarism knowingly is cheating. Plagiarism can come from taking work from other authors articles, essays, encyclopedias, etc. ( Avoiding Plagiarism ). The words that are in the bold face are the key words taken from another persons work and put into my own words. If there is no citation at the end of this sentence, it would be plagiarism because key words were taken. When somebody plagiarizes while using citations, it is usually because they didn t provide the appropriate source information. This is called The Misinformer ( What is Plagiarism? ). The only way that we can fix this problem is to make sure you as the writer is getting the correct information, and putting it all in the correct order according to the writing style: APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. As long as the correct source information is being found and the work taken from another writer is being cited, you will not have to worry about any problems regarding plagiarism. I think people that plagiarize shouldn t be punished immediately because they might not know that they plagiarized. If there is a student that did this, the teacher should give them constructive criticism. Students tend to learn from mistakes if they are given criticism and it shows the next time they write a paper. Writers need to understand that

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it is okay to use another writers work, but they must give credibility to that author.

Works Cited
Allen, Sarah. "The Inspired Writer vs. the Real Writer." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1. Anderson, South Carolina: Parlor Press, 2010. 34-43. Print. "Avoiding Plagiarism." The Writing Place, Northwestern University's peer tutoring center for writers. N.p., . Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.writing.northwestern.edu/avoiding_plagiarism.html>. Drum, Alice. "JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie." JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/357525?seq=3&Search=yes&searchText =Plagiarism&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch% 3Fq0%3DPlagiarism%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q1%3D%26f1% 3Dall%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D %26ed%3D%26la%3D%26jo%3D%26jc.Language%2526amp%253BL iterature_CollegeCompositionandCommunication%3Dj100126%26jc.La nguage%2526amp%253BLiterature_CollegeEnglish%3Dj100127%26jc. Language%2526amp%253BLiterature_TheEnglishJournal%3Dj100151 &prevSearch=&item=7&ttl=636&returnArticleService=showFullText&r esultsServiceName=null>. Elliott, Bobby. "Plagiarism FAQ." Plagiarism FAQ. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. <www.bobbyelliott.com/Plagiarism.htm>.

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Kuhn, Bertha M.. "JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie." JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie. National Council of Teachers of English, 4 Dec. 1957. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/354915?&Search=yes&searchText=Plagi arism&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0 %3DPlagiarism%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q1%3D%26f1%3Dal l%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D%26e d%3D%26la%3D%26jo%3D%26jc.Language%2526amp%253BLiterat ure_CollegeCompositionandCommunication%3Dj100126%26jc.Langua ge%2526amp%253BLiterature_CollegeEnglish%3Dj100127%26jc.Lang uage%2526amp%253BLiterature_TheEnglishJournal%3Dj100151&pre vSearch=&item=4&ttl=636&returnArticleService=showFullText>.

What is Plagiarism? Plagiarism.org. Accessed July 5, 2009. <http://www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/what_is_plagiarism.html>