President Bush is a failure who daily butchers the English language.
This, angry conservatives and smirking liberals, is not plagiarism. It is common knowledge. The problem arises when you, according to Webster, “steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own.” That is plagiarism. And it is fast becoming the leading pet peeve of professors and the dominating guilty pleasure of students.
“But what exactly is plagiarism?” asks the supposedly innocent student who gets caught. According to www.indiana.edu, it is “using others’ ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information.” Clearly acknowledging the source of that information, for example, would be citing the source (for example, www.indiana.edu).
There it is: the cure! It’s only a copy and paste away, as long as the source is included! Problem solved? Not exactly. There are a few other rules that should be common knowledge. Use quotation marks to separate your words from the cited writer’s words. It is a small price to pay, pushing the quotation mark button twice instead of being potentially expelled. Now for the sermon on paraphrasing.
“Oh, silly Dr. Notbornyesterday, I didn’t plagiarize. I paraphrased!” Like big brother and little president, so too are plagiarism and paraphrase. To exist or not to exist? That is the interrogative statement.
Paraphrasing is self-explanatory; it is taking someone’s words and substituting some of them in order to make the plagiarized paper appear original. It is possible to paraphrase without plagiarizing by – to no great shock – citing the source from which your modified words originated.
The policy on plagiarism is gradually becoming justifiably strict. The policies vary with classes but the gist of it is expulsion from the class, if not the campus. Plagiarize once, shame on you. Plagiarize twice, you’re stupid and you have failed the class.
The glory of Google will stab you right in the eye when a professor suspicious of your sudden knack for 18th century Romanticism types in a phrase from “your” paper and sees the original pop up as the first result. Somewhere, a professor giggles and a student shivers.
Now that I’ve explained plagiarism without getting too emotional as an English major, I’m curious as to what can be gained from plagiarism. The difference between a good grade and a bad one should never lead you to discarding your integrity. Take that C, D or F and smile.
Albert Einstein once said, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” I wonder how he would feel about that today if I started telling the world about my revolutionary equation for energy and mass. There is nothing to gain from stealing others’ words, and getting caught is very likely.
If you have some masochistic desire to plagiarize, then go the Stephen Glass route and just make everything up from the top of your head. Exhibit some creativity and prove that somewhere in there is a voice capable of speaking for itself, for better or worse.
Remember to cite those sources, because having the exact same views and expressing them with the exact same words is too much of a coincidence. Thank you, www.indiana.edu, and may justice come for those uncited writers one punished plagiarist at a time!

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