Why Plagiarism Is Wrong

Beau Weed Plagiarism is more important today than it has ever been before. We are living in a time were there is an unlimited amount of information at our finger tips. The internet is amazing because as students we have access to different websites, articles, encyclopedias, and even books. We can access all of these things with ease, and never even think about it. However, with the good aspects of technology, comes bad characteristics. With the ability to access all of this information easily, we can also copy all of this information effortlessly. All it takes is a few people who do not respect other people’s intellectual property, for plagiarism to become an issue. If students are taught early how to avoid plagiarism, and why it is wrong,
then many troublesome situations can be avoided later on in their academic careers. With information being so easy to access and so easy to steal, learning about plagiarism is very important. Teaching students about plagiarism is also important because they may not even be aware they are doing it.
Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional. Students may steal someone’s work on purpose for a variety of different reasons. However, some students may use a source with good intentions, however, not cite it properly. Thus causing them to be caught plagiarizing without even intending to. If a student is taught how to cite properly, and have a good grasp of the concept, then they should never run into the issue of not citing something properly and plagiarizing accidentally. This is a form of plagiarizing that can be easily prevented by teachers doing a good
job. Plagiarism is serious because it means you are stealing from someone. This is a fact that many students do not understand, and a reason why plagiarism needs to be taught better and earlier. If you start teaching a student in 3rd grade that plagiarizing is stealing, they are going to take that seriously, and grow up thinking of plagiarism as a serious topic. When people work hard on something and publish it, they do not deserve to have it stolen. They deserve the credit, so more people will hear about their work and they will get more recognition. People are happy for you to use their work in your research, they just want you to give them credit. I do not think that is asking too much, but students need to start looking at it that way. Teachers need to start doing a better job of showing students this. There are many great resources out there for students to use to learn about plagiarism and to how correctly cite their work.
We looked at many of them in class. The videos we watched were very helpful because they showed examples. It is easier to grasp concepts when seeing them as opposed to just hearing about them. I think the videos were more helpful that the articles, because videos are more engaging. I think students will pay more attention to a video and get more out of it. The Perdue Owl website is also very helpful, and has lots of great information. This is a good resource if you are looking how to create an APA citation. However, if you are trying to teach your kids about plagiarizing, another source such as a video or Lycoming College’s plagiarism game would be better. Teaching plagiarism to our students is extremely important. They need to start learning earlier why it is wrong, so later in life when it is more important, they already grasp the concept. It is teacher’s job to make sure that their students get the information that they need to cite properly. There are tons of resources at our disposal, and teachers have many great tools to teach their students about plagiarism. There is no reason why as teachers we cannot start to put a greater importance on plagiarism and
citations.