Two Simple Steps

Two Simple Steps

Every student has to go through the difficulties of writing a paper.  Sometimes that difficulty leads to an act of desperation.  This one act can change a student’s life and future.  There are two simple steps that every student has used, called copy and paste.  Technology has allowed plagiarism to spread because of how easy it is to not only find another person’s work, but claim it as their own.

Writing a paper is really difficult for many students and it takes time for an idea to be shaped into a work of art.  I have heard from many of my English teachers that no paper is perfect and even the best writers make mistakes and need revisions.  Writing is a process that takes time and no one can master a paper on the first draft.  There is always the temptation of taking the easy way out for students whether it is laziness, stress, or just no time.  The ease of just searching a topic on a search engine and then clicking on one of the results has made writing a paper easier than the years when there was no internet and books were the only source of information.  The access to information is so easy and convenient, that most of the time students can just go on their computer at home to search for information regarding their topic.   We live in a society that makes references to popular culture.  Many television shows use jokes or plot ideas that have been used by previous television programs.  It is everywhere in our society.  It is just that easy to take someone’s idea and copy it and claim that it is your own.  “It’s possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take.” said Teresa Fishman, director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University.  Many students think that some of the articles that they find have no author, so it is fine to copy the ideas in that article and not give any credit to the article.  It is easy now to plagiarize, but it is also easy to get caught with the many sources available to schools and universities. 

It is true that many people that are caught plagiarizing did not know that they were plagiarizing.  Technology has helped change the way we receive information, it also has provided so much information that students have to be tempted to use one of the millions articles about whatever topic that they are writing about.  All it takes is just a simple click and anyone’s work on the internet is now in “yours” and no one has to know.  Technology has made many students become dependent on the internet to finish any paper.  Technology has also made it easier to catch those that do steal the ideas of others with just a quick search of a sentence.  Technology has made it easier to find information but it also has made the information accessible to many people that can steal any one of those ideas.  It is not the fault of the teachers or anyone it is just with the ease of finding information that it was bound that somebody was going to steal another person’s idea and then it would spread.

Technology has done a lot to help us receive information easier, but it has also influenced the ease of plagiarism.  It will never go away, but we need to help students understand how to avoid doing it and show them all the problems with stealing another person’s idea.  We also need to teach students that writing may be difficult but after some time each person will develop their own style or voice and it will make the process of writing more enjoyable.