Tsk Tsk Plagiarism is bad.

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?