"Plagiarism is bad."
That's what we have all been told since high school.
"Who cares if we copy the works of others?"
"They wouldn't have put it out there if they didn't want other people to use it, right?"
"It's not like I'm using all of their work - just a few sentences."
"I'm just taking what everyone else has done and making something new, aren't I?"
Many of you might have felt these sentiments while you were struggling to find the right citation style to use in your last research paper.
Surely plagiarism is not that big of a deal is it?
In a recent Pew Research Center study that polled 1,055 college and university presidents from all over the country, 55 percent said that plagiarism in papers among college students had increased over the past 10 years.
Of those presidents, 89 percent "believed that computers and the Internet have played a major role in this trend."
Copy and paste is not your friend.
It can be tempting to copy and paste material you find online into your research paper, but this is a one-way ticket to academic disciplinary action.
But moral behavior should never be commanded, and it should never be elicited by threat of punishment. Morality does not exist at the barrel of a gun.
Instead, you should not plagiarize because it is the right thing to do.
Your research papers might be completed the night before they are due, but the sources you used took years to complete.
If you believe that the person or publication that took the time and effort to compile and develop the information and ideas off of which you based your work does not require a citation, then you are essentially implying that the source does not deserve credit for this effort.
By that logic, you are implying that you do not deserve credit for your own work. Therefore, you deserve nothing but failure on your project.
There is, however, another reason that might hit closer to home.
If you do not cite your sources, you will lose all credibility for yourself and your findings.
Yes, you are in college and are probably pretty smart. But you will probably not be coming up with the next political, mathematical or psychological theory off of the top of your head.
When the words on your page appear to come from far beyond the reach of the average undergraduate's intellectual capacity or research capabilities, chances are people will think you made it up or copied it.
To put it simply, if you ever want to be taken seriously in the academic or professional world, it is in your best interest not to plagiarize. A mistake like that will stay with you forever.
