Don't Steal My Words!

Last semester, in one of my writing classes, we had a huge group project that took up almost half of the semester and was going to be a large part of our grade. We depended on one of my group members for getting us the connections for interviews and basic information that we needed since he encouraged us to pick the topic and said that he knew a lot about it. However, we only got so far into the project before things got complicated. This same group member sprung the news as we were administering surveys that he might get kicked out of the class. When we asked a flabbergasted “why”, he replied with a nonchalant shrug and a mocking smile, “I plagiarized a bunch of things and I got caught”.

He told us how he had a meeting with our professor to talk about it and he was not sure if he would be allowed to continue with the project. We asked him why he did it and he couldn’t come up with an answer; I think it was purely just a matter of convenience and laziness with a dash of immense disrespect, not only for whomever he plagiarized from, but also the professors he attempted to fool (yes, there were multiple we learned later). I don’t know what happened after he got kicked out of our class, but the remaining of my group members and I all had to take on a lot more work in order for the project to have any success.

Plagiarism is a huge deal and seems to be taken extremely lightly by some people. I’ve heard of so many classes on campus that have had multiple cases of plagiarism this year. I know that some younger students find it difficult to constitute what is plagiarism and what is not; I have had the same worries while writing papers, too. Being an English major you are always writing literature papers and analyzing critical arguments with arguments of your own, and plagiarism is always talked about in classes to warn students against it. I am not sure of what other majors do to try and take a preventative stance on plagiarism, but I’m sure there are conversations that deal with it. However, if there are ever any doubts or concerns, educating yourself on proper citations and the recognizing the difference between someone else’s writing and your own, even if you are paraphrasing, is extremely important. Making sure that you give someone the proper credit ensures your academic honesty. I wouldn’t want my ideas stolen and passed off for someone else’s, would you?