Plagiarism is becoming a major problem among college campuses. Technology seems to be a main contributor to this increase because it "blurs the lines" of plagiarism as the New York Times said. Not only does the internet make it easy to copy and paste blurbs into a paper, but the major issue seems to be the accessibility. The article said that information found on the internet is easily viewed as belonging to the whole online community because there is so much available by the click of a mouse. To students, many ideas and information on the internet doesn't seem to have an author, and therefore doesn't need to be credited. I agree with this, but I think this sounds more of an excuse for students that plagiarize. We've all been taught since middle school when we first started to write research papers how to cite resources. I think the internet just makes it easier for students to not have to critically think about their writing and come up with their own ideas. There's nothing wrong with using aids such as the internet to help write papers, but not citing the resources is just pure laziness. In the article, it said that 40% of undergraduates in a test admitted to plagiarizing some in their writing. Colleges are cracking down on academic honesty codes, and many professors are using plagiarism detectors online that scans papers for it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html?pagewanted=all
So crazy that plagiarism can be considered as this: student does a homework assignment and simply prints out many of them and passes it to his/her friends...
ReplyDeleteIt is very difficult sometimes to find the true source of information. I had alot of trouble with this in high school when writing a paper on my favorite band. I couldn't tell you where i had recieved all my knowledge about them, it was just stuff i picked up over time. Also, i dont believe that my high school properly prepared me for college papers. I don't recall ever being taught proper MLA format in detail.
ReplyDeleteI agree that technology has stopped students from knowing how to think on their own. People Google answers to quizzes, they google to get information on a paper, and a million other things; It is fast and easy. Now when students are given a worksheet in class and asked to use the book and figure something out on their own or when there is an online quiz that blocks you from using Google, people do not know how to do it on their own.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, technology makes it so easily accessible and is the main cause.
ReplyDeleteSince everything is easily accessible online, students choose to take information from there. Although we can blame this on technology, people must look at themselves first.
ReplyDelete