| As defined in Webster’s dictionary to plagiarize is, "to steal or pass of (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own." Recently, there has been a great deal of copying off of the internet, whether it be students who are desperate at three in the morning or people who copy others web-sties and say they are their own. The Internet is used by many people and students who have the freedom to access every site. Plagiarism is a detestable and malignant part of the underground high school society. Unfortunately, the democratic right freedom of speech increases the potential for literary plagiarism.
Should people be allowed to use prewritten material to their benefit? Or should we respect the originality of those brilliant minds that created the highly sought after literary works in the first place. For example, there are web-sites that were made solely for the use of students who need to plagiarize. Cheathouse.com and Totally.net are just two of numerous web pages that offer students an easy way out of a paper. Fortunately, there have been web pages made to detect online plagiarism. One site is called plagiarism.org and it supplies teachers with document analysis tools detect plagiarism in the digital age. Detecting plagiarism is very important, because, like cancer, if plagiarism is not treated with severe punishment immediately, it can spread quickly though out the school. The rights of authors are not protected when people plagiarize and it should be a federal offense.
People are able to have cheat sites, because of the first amendment’s freedom of speech, but it does not necessarily make them right. For example, a college professor at UC Berkeley told his students that he used a plagiarism program and still 15% of the students copied some part of their work without citing it. This is not fair to those students who actually put time, effort, and old fashioned research into their papers. However, one cannot place all the blame on the plagiarizer. Ways and means of plagiarizing are everywhere one looks: Cliff Notes, online essay writing systems, and even kids in school who offer their services without being asked. It almost seems as if society wants a person to do as little as possible in the way of work, and to lean more and more towards that ultimate goal of lethargy; plagiarism. Even more there is also an ethical issue to plagiarism. Since technology makes it easier for students to commit academic fraud, either from coping and pasting together paper to downloading papers from cheat sites, there is more potential to cheat.
Since plagiarism.org is up and running, it may decrease the amount children plagiarize from the Internet. There is a need to focus some part of a child’s education on netiquette and actual points of law (what is acceptable or not online). This may detour any plagiarism that may occur in their life, especially if it is brought up at a young age. Plagiarism is not acceptable online, even though the Internet seems untamed and lawless. The Internet can be a great resource and should not be misused.
Bibliography
"Debating Electronic Plagiarism," USA TODAY. January 5, 2000.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cuber/tech/cth067.htm
"Internet Watchdog could stop Collegiate Copycats," CNN.com. November 21, 1999.
http://www.cnn.com
"Can e-publishing upstarts upset traditional powerhouses?" Latimes.com. November 9, 1999.
http://www.latimes.com
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