Intro and Synthesize

Nicholas Kollert

English 1510 148

Questioning a Construct

September 17, 2012

Questioning A Construct: Plagiarism 

Intro

            Plagiarism as we know it today has been around since the very first times we as a civilization had begun writing our thoughts down on paper. The word plagiarism itself came from the Latin root word plagiarius, which literally means kidnapper, seducer, or plunderer this definition of plagiarism came about in the early fifteenth century. There are a few types of plagiarism out there today; the different types include direct plagiarism, Mosaic plagiarism, absent citations, or not knowing when to reference. Most of these types of plagiarisms are showing up all over academic learning institutions and heavy punishments are being handed out to violators. In most cases these forms of plagiarism could be avoided easily if only the student knew the inappropriate and appropriate ways to deal with the touchy subject of plagiarism.        

Synthesize

Plagiarism today is becoming an enormous problem in high schools and colleges all across the world. The stats have shown that there is an increase of the percentage of students at these institutions that plagiarize which can easily be avoided. Rebecca Moore Howard says, “Plagiarism is almost like rape to where the original author is violated.” In this extreme example Rebecca Moore Howard is trying to say that you can’t just steal other authors work without giving proper credit, but Howard uses a much more derogatory tone of how she describes plagiarism. In my other cases though “College professors are more two minded about plagiarism in the sense that they punish students for taking other authors works but at the same time say that no writing is ever fully original” states an article from The Chronicle. In both cases though they agree that plagiarism could easily be evaded with proper techniques to avoid plagiarism.