After reading the articles on plagiarism, I have taken a much different view on the subject. I knew kids back in high school who would just copy and paste text from online sources like websites and Wikipedia while writing their paper. I can honestly say I was never one of those kids who would use other people's work as their own. However, I totally agree with the article "Scientists Explain Why They Plagiarize" on how copying and pasting these days is so easy to do. There have been many times when I've been racing the clock to finish a paper and the thought of just hopping on a website and using their information seemed oh so easy and just simply convenient. Luckily I have enough self respect and respect for the original author to do that. When I think of someone plagiarizing another person's paper, for example, I always wonder how the original author would feel about that. Unless that person put their writing out there precisely for people to use as their own, I'm pretty sure they would not like it.
In high school I knew a lot of people who would rather just half ass their papers. Not only is plagiarizing the easy way out, but it pretty much means that sitting in all of those writing classes, and doing all of that homework, meant nothing because in the end you don't even use your own brain and thoughts to get that final grade. Yeah it took you an entire hour to find that perfect paper and switch a word here and there, but you will never get that feeling of accomplishment when you receive an A, as you would if you wrote it on your own.
I can see where some people think plagiarizing is the easy way out. Maybe they're horrible at writing papers, or maybe they're just too busy. However, I really believe that just using someone else's work is down right lazy, and if you know you suck at writing, then get some help, not just copy and paste. How will you ever become a better writer if you don't learn how to do it yourself?
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On the other hand, using someone elses oringinal ideas as a jumping point for your own thoughts can be very useful. If I'm having writer's block or can't figure out how I want to say something, I will go online and see if anyone else has something that might be along the same lines of my thoughts, and use there ideas to get me thinking. No, I agree direct copying and pating is wrong without proper citation and following it with your own thoughts, but using someone else creation to inspire your own can sometimes create some of the best work.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I also think plagiarism kind of defeats the purpose of education. If we can all just find the information online and just use it to write a paper would there be any point in an original thought?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that refraining from plagiarism is at least partly one of those well-meaning, artificial imperatives that you learn in school, but the importance of which diminishes when you are outside of those walls. After that, maybe the only rule is to not get caught. In school, it is important to learn how to write, but if you are a professional then your primary concern is to write something that can hold water and stand on it's own legs. That might mean being scrupulously original, or that might mean taking some license here and there. I think it's mostly a matter of personal taste.
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