Plagiarism

Plagiarism

Being a student there are times where it can become very stressful, you will end up having a lot of papers due at once. I have struggled with these deadlines and have tried to think of ways to get around doing the papers but have always ended up doing them myself. I have gone to the websites where you can buy the papers but always say no because I am afraid of risking my academic career. I admit there are times where I haven’t cited my sources as well as I should which by many definitions is plagiarism which I agree with. Doing a paper is a lot of work and requires you to check your work and give authors credit for their work.

Dixie State Colleges academic policy states the following:

“Maintain academic ethics and honesty; to this end, prohibited activities include, but are not limited to, the following: Cheating, which includes, but is not limited to, copying from another student's test papers, or plagiarism.” They include many other definitions and things students can’t do that further explain their academic honesty policy.

My definition of academic honesty involves doing your work and only your own work, following the instructions/guidelines given by the instructor, as well as using resources correctly. I think that authors work hard to publish their information and it is important to give them their credit. Academic honesty is something I have a strong belief because I want to feel that I did my work to get where I am once I am done with my education, I have been cheated from before and I felt so betrayed so could never do it from someone else, and it is what we are taught is right.

Merriam- Webster defines plagiarism as to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own, to use (another's production) without crediting the source, to commit literary theft, and to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source. The learning center on plagiarism says that all of the following are examples of plagiarism: turning in someone else's work as your own, copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit, failing to put a quotation in quotation marks, giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation, changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit, and copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.

Plagarism.Org the plagiarism learning center gives reasons as to why students plagiarize including both intentional and unintentional reasons. Reasoning includes: poor planning, not analyzing sources, justification, to make the grade, feeling the authors words are better, not citing properly, confusing themselves, not being taught how to research, paraphrase, or cite, as well as not being able to find the source in order to cite.

Plagarism.org gives ways that teachers and parents can help prevent students from plagiarizing that include: explain what plagiarism is, explain why plagiarism is wrong,