On August 1 of this year, (2010) Trip Gabriel wrote an article for the New York Times, “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age”. It describes an event that is happening all over America in several universities – plagiarism. Basically, what’s happening is this: when writing papers students are copying and pasting from the net and passing it off on their own because they think it has no author. Mr. Trip Gabriel believed this is the result of growing up in a digital age. Well … I grew up in a digital age and I know the meaning of the word plagiarism.
pla•gia•rism [pley-juh-riz-uh m, -jee-uh-riz-]
–noun
1. the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.
2. something used and represented in this manner.
(Taken from Dictionary.com)
The key word that Trip focus’ on is author. According to him students don’t see an author and they think it’s common knowledge. So they just take paragraphs from sources like Wikipedia and pass it as their own. The biggest thing that gets my goat, there are teachers/professors that are justifying these actions. “Well, the idea of authorship is changing… blah blah blah”. No it’s not.
An author has a right to his/her ideas and should be given credit for it. Yes, things are absolutely going ever more digital but do I think that just because someone doesn’t list an author means there isn’t one?
I don’t really think I need to answer that for you.
I’ve been hearing a lot about changes that are being excepted into today society. Things like text speak. Younger generations are writing in anagrams rather than in full sentences. Things like LOL, BRB, and more. I’ve listed the simplest here, but they get more complicated. A young cousin of mine seems to go out of her way to misspell words with the exact same number of letters as if she were writing them correctly. I thought the point of text speak was to make it easier to write a text message. You know… that tiny computer screen on your phone which has a limit of 160 characters and a minuscule keyboard?
To some degree, these things need to be accepted. It’s how languages grow and change. But there has to be a line somewhere. Perhaps it comes down to our education system – like always. Schools in Florida don’t even teach grammar anymore. And I’m sure there are many other states that are the same. So, if they aren’t teaching grammar … then what else aren’t they teaching? Plagiarism perhaps?
Maybe it’s time for the definition of the word plagiarism to be changed or at least an addition made…
3. If you didn’t write it then it’s not yours
It’s that simple.
Hey look I sited my sources! How hard it that???
