Is Plagiarism so Bad? To understand the effect of plagiarism we have to understand what plagiarism is. According to Dictionar.co the definition of plagiarism state as, “an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author's work as one's own, as by not crediting the original author.” Plagiarism is an academic misconduct in which students try to avoid thinking and writing. The schools expectations are that students will present their own words, ideas, works, and thoughts resulting from their own understanding. Therefore plagiarism in my opinion is a form of dishonesty and a desire to present other’s idea and to be rewarded as for own work. Three things that result from plagiarizing is that defeats the purpose of writing, defeats the school’s goal of teaching, and is unethical. Plagiarism defeats the purpose of writing. According to Nine Things, “When … substitute someone else’s understanding or expression for your own, you avoid the work of using and improving your own expressive ability.” In other words when students are focus on taking other’s words and use them as their own, the process of writing is forestall. The main purpose of writing is to learn and develop the ability of writing skills about something. The schools ask students for such activities just to develop their ability to express themselves. A student may choose the easiest way to finish a project but will not be an asset for the long run. Besides defeating the purpose of writing, plagiarism defeats the school’s goal of teaching. One of the goals of schools is to help students to become creative and innovative. The University of Birmingham states that, “In assessing essays, projects reports, computer programs, and all of the other forms in which work can be presented, it is normally assumed that the work is entirely the student’s own (except where the student has clearly stated otherwise), and the work is marked accordingly.” Plagiarism is also not allowed in many nonacademic fields. How a school can teach their students to develop the skills of writing if they tray to find somebody’s work and just move the words around. Plagiarism besides defeating the purpose of writing and the school’s goal of teaching, is unethical. First of all presenting a document as own work and own idea is a dishonest action. Second, the student may use other words and ideas and the student may benefit for stilling other words. According to “What is Plagiarism, “Thirdly, a degree is evidence of its holder’s abilities and knowledge. If a student gains employment on the basis of a qualification they have not earned, they may be a risk to others.” In order to complete some assignments, students need to read articles and sources with different ideas, thoughts and students may use them. It is right to use such sources if they are cited and sources. To cite somebody else, students must use “quotation marks” and to present the source of quotations. In this way students can avoid plagiarism. One way to avoid plagiarism is by thinking. If an assignment is required, it is easier to start thinking about that subject, that to start searching and copying. It may take less time to formulate own and original ideas then to take them from other sources and transforming them. Another way to avoid plagiarism is by writing your own ideas. Starting to brainstorm can bring original thoughts and can save time. Also a student can feel better about themselves if they write in their own words, which will make them a better student. Third way to avoid plagiarism is by signaling somebody else work. According to Nine things, “Any direct quotation must be indicated by two things: “quotation marks” … plus a “reference” (also called a “citation”) to the source.” The quotation marks represent the exact reproduction of somebody else words. The source refers to the place from where the quotation comes from. To avoid plagiarism, students must clearly provide those information. The last way to avoid plagiarism is by paraphrasing, or saying other words in our own words. In order to paraphrasing we have to signal the author and clearly represent his idea in a different way. Playing with the order of the words can be considered plagiarism without sighting the source. In the process of writing, students may choose to use other’s work instead of their own, but it will not help the student to achieve the goal of expressing himself. Because in schools and in real life people expect to be honest, ideal is to present mutual respect. The access of technology makes it so easy for anybody to find what they are looking for, also the concept that is hard to proof that someone’s idea belong to that person, brings the temptations. It was demonstrated over the time that is hard to keep track of the scientific discoveries. For example Romanian Nicolae Paulescu, researched from 1916 to 1923 the insulin. In 1922 he patented the pancreine (insulin). But in 1922 F. Banting and J. Macleod from university of Toronto, based on Paulescu’s research, they continue the research, and received the noble prize in 1923 for insulin treatment for diabetic. Paulescu joined the Canadian research team, but just Canadians were rewarded. In conclusion if everybody will be honest, we will not face plagiarism. But it is hard in today’s world to completely don’t have plagiarism. I think the access of the internet is the main point in tempting a person to choose the easiest way, to copy someone else’s idea. People are always going to be jealous about some other ideas or inventions. That is one reason people plagiarize. Another thing is that some students are just lazy and don’t want to do their assignments so they just copy and paste the first essay they found online. The change that can be made is that Microsoft can implement the way/what people copy and paste offline.

Dictionary. Com.
“What is Plagiarism?”
“Nine Things You Should Already Know About Plagiarism”
“Guidance Notes on Plagiarism”