Plagiarism
Plagiarism is one of the largest epidemics we have to thank the internet for. Plagiarism is known as literary theft and is when somebody knowingly takes somebody else’s ideas or words as if they were their own and not providing due credit. With the fast paced life style of students today, plagiarism is as easy as copy, paste and done. Many students have a catch me if you can mentality and since the penalties are sometimes not that severe if caught, students are willing to take the risk. With the online college courses available, people of all ages are going back to school. Most older students find school more difficult and time consuming than it was years ago and with job and family responsibilities, search the internet, copy bits and pieces from articles, blogs or school sites, not even thinking they are plagiarizing and completing a report in a fraction of the time spent doing a report before the internet. A long night in the library, gathering a fact from encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines and books was when plagiarizing was difficult and easily detected. Cut and paste was clipping articles from professional journalist and pasting them onto paper with Elmer’s glue. Now it is very easy to gather large amounts of information, cut and paste it into word processing software and forget to put the author or some quotes around copied passages. At least most colleges have some sort of formatting such as ADA that requires students to at least rewrite some of the copied material in order to meet the format requirements. Some instructors have their students submit writing assignments in segments over several weeks like the outline, thesis statement, rough draft and then the final draft. This at least makes coping reports more difficult. Plagiarizing is wrong because you deny yourself the chance to learn and develop skills you may be need in your future profession. You put in question your integrity, not only for your instructors but future employers. You