Four Reasons Not to Plagiarize

Answer 1

Plagiarism, or claiming someone else’s words as your own, is becoming more and more common on today’s college campuses. This is a huge problem for many reasons, both ethical and intellectual. Here are four reasons why you shouldn’t plagiarize in school or in the “real world.”

• It is unethical. Claiming someone else’s words as your own is the equivalent of stealing his or her intellectual property. And, of course, stealing in any form is unethical. You can avoid this by always citing your sources and giving credit to the original author of the idea.
• It is the easy way out. Copying and pasting someone else’s words allows you to escape from the process of actually doing the assignment. Professors assign work to help you learn. When you plagiarize, you cheat yourself out of a valuable learning experience.
• It comes with heavy consequences. All schools have disciplinary measures in place for dealing with students who plagiarize. These can range from receiving zero credit (or an F) for the plagiarized assignment (or the entire class) to being placed on academic probation, to being expelled from school. The main reason not to plagiarize is because it is unethical. Sadly, many students are not dissuaded by this alone. However, the possibility of negatively affecting one’s GPA or academic career in general is usually enough to make students pay attention and think about their actions.
• It does nothing to advance intellectual discourse. One of the saddest things about students who plagiarize is that they are selling themselves short. Your words are important, and it is equally important that you learn to express yourself in a written format. When you plagiarize, you sacrifice your own self-expression, which, in the end, does nothing to further your education or intellectual discourse in general.