With all of the pressures placed on teenagers today, it’s more than a little understandable that some adolescents are conditioned to believe they must achieve success by any means possible. You want to ace high school so get into a prestigious college and go on to nab that career you’ve always wanted, but before you can get to that point, you have to figure out a way to make yourself stand out.
It would make sense to just take the ideas that brilliant minds before you have already come up with, right? Well, there is a wrong way to go about it.
What is plagiarism?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines plagiarism as “the act of using another person's words or ideas without giving credit to that person." Okay, so what does that really mean? Basically, when you plagiarize, you try to pass off someone else’s hard work as your own. So, if you were to go online and find an essay on the French Revolution and turn it in as your own, that’s plagiarism.
I know what you’re thinking: Well, what if I change the words around; that’s different, right? Sorry, no dice. Think about it this way: When rappers use samples from other songs, they still have to list the original artist as a songwriter - which is why we live in a world where Kurt Cobain was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Song (That’s true; look it up).
Why is plagiarism a problem?
So, what’s the big deal? For one thing, you need to give credit where credit is due. The person you are stealing from worked hard to come up with a new spin on a topic. Shouldn’t they be recognized for it? More importantly, shouldn’t you want to do the same? It’s tough to be unique, but most people would agree that it’s more rewarding than just being another face in a crowd.
Stealing doesn’t just do harm to the original writer - it gets in a few jabs at you, too. It tears down your integrity, instead of defining you as one of the movers and shakers that you should believe that you are capable of becoming. Besides, teachers will find out, and most of them don’t take cheating lightly.
How can plagiarism be avoided?
It’s very simple: cite your sources. All of your sources. Even the ones you only took a small idea from. That’s just a good rule of thumb for life in general. You want to have all the evidence possible to build up the claim you’re making. For example, when you’re arguing with your best friend about what the largest city in Mongolia is (as I’m sure you do often), you want to be able to whip out the world census data on your phone and be able to prove beyond any doubt that it is indeed Ulan Bator. Sometimes facts mean more when they’re coming from people with more education and experience that you have at this point in your life.
Why would you want someone thinking that the information being presented is yours when you could let them know that in actuality it came from an acclaimed astrophysicist?
What have we learned?
Okay, so let’s recap:
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Stealing other people’s word is wrong and you shouldn’t do it.
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It is damaging to everyone involved (and you’re better than that).
- All of this mess can be avoided if you just cite your sources.
