Plagiarism is a very serious problem among students nowadays. Thanks to the Internet, tons of research papers are just a click away. Researching a topic became much easier when search engines like Google became available. Now, instead of going to the library and spending hours on finding the right article or a book, we can have it all in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, not all students know how to use the resources wisely.
Plagiarism can be compared to stealing, even though not everyone sees it that way. We may not be stealing someone’s money or car but their intellectual property. As defined in the textbook, “Plagiarism is passing off other people's ideas or words as one's own. “ (Ruggiero, p.18) I think that some students especially do not realize how serious of an offense plagiarism is. “In the academic world, plagiarism is considered an ethical violation and is punished by a failing grade for a paper or a course or even by dismissal from the institution.” Outside the school, there can be serious consequences as well. The original author, the person from whom we “stole” the ideas and/or words can press charges against us. (Ruggiero, p.18)
I also believe that some cases of student plagiarism are due to misunderstanding. Perhaps the student paraphrased a fragment of a scholar article and did not put the source because they thought that since it is in their own words they do not need to cite the source. Maybe the student was not familiar with the APA citation method and they made a mistake. This is why it is important for students to always double check their reference list and make sure all the sources are cited correctly.
Another case of plagiarism is submitting a paper purchased on the Internet as one’s own. Research papers and essays bought online are written to order- which means that the paper cannot be found on the Internet. Therefore, students often