Plagiarism: What exactly defines this infamous word?
When I was a college professor, I always gave the warning to my students about if they turned in a Plagiarized paper, they would face failure of the course or suspension from the school.
On the first day of every new semester with every new class, in my syllabi I would hand out a page which explained what plagiarism was. Simply explained:
Plagiarism is when you take another person’s words and try to use them as your own.
When I was teaching Freshmen in college, there were instances that they did not know how to cite properly and informed me of this so I would sit with them individually before the research paper needed to be turned in for a grade and we cited sources properly.
One story I would like to share which many of you will find quite amusing was in my second semester of teaching Freshmen or English 101. I asked my students for their first written assignment to write an essay about themselves or a Personal Narrative. Never thinking a student would have trouble writing about themselves, the shock came when I read an essay which:
1) Didn’t follow what I asked for and,
2) Was written way too well for this student.
Within the same week another writing assignment was due and before I got to confront the student about the first assignment, the second one also was plagiarized.
Students need to realize that when a teacher or Professor says they are checking your work against a plagiarism program, they aren’t lying. I even told my students which program.
Turnitin.com is an amazing program which not only catches the plagiarized papers but color codes the phrases or sentences and gives the exact websites and sources the students took the information from!
Another thing students should never do is hand in a paper, which was obviously photo copied, from a type writer. If you are in a sorority or fraternity, going to the “file cabinet of research papers” doesn’t guarantee an “A.”
If you choose to take classes, expect to write original papers written by you the student, and not something you bought off the internet.