Plagiarism A Pestilence in Education Essay - 1840 Words

Plagiarism: The Pestilence in Education When I think of plagiarism, I imagine a person literally stealing from another individual. The term plagiarism is derived from the Latin word plagi rius, which essentially represents the felony of kidnapping. An individual who kidnaps anothers work is a felon. Obviously, this form of larceny is not as immoral as the form for which one can be imprisoned; however, most educators and honest students view plagiarism in this manner. Within education I conceive that there are two kinds of plagiarism: copying a paper word-for-word and not providing the correct recognition to the original author when utilizing their composition. I believe that each situation of plagiarism should be considered serious†¦show more content†¦Of course, I did not have the right to explain, because I was deemed a cheater, one who could not be trusted, for the rest of the semester. In addition to being demoralized that day, my instructor continued to scrutinize my work and me very closely for the remainder of the term, and I felt humiliated from that day forward. Although I have since learned never to allow anyone to peruse anything that I have written, the failure to allow me to defend myself and give me the benefit of the doubt was cruel and unusual punishment given that this was my first offense, and might not even be deemed an offense if a poll had been taken. Whenever we had a test or quiz, the instructor requested that I sit in the front, near his desk. Projects and papers were also graded harshly. All of this happened because I was unfairly accused of assisting an act of plagiarism. Steiner 3 Another example of plagiarism occurred in my English class in high school. I was obligated to submit all computer-typed work to turn-it-in-dot-com. This concept of surrendering my hard work to a computer-generated website that scanned it for copied sentence structure and like-words was completely foreign to me. The creators and owners of the sites are only in this business for the money. Public school systems pay annual fees to subscribe to these websites, which do not work efficiently. All of my instructors allow a certain percentage ofShow MoreRelated Comparing the Secular Humanist, Machiavelli and the Religious Humanist, Erasmus3218 Words   |  13 PagesErasmus (1467-1536), the most famous man of letters of the early sixteenth century, forms quite a contrast to Machiavelli. In addition to Praise of Folly, he wrote hundreds of books and over 3,OOO letters. The illegitimate son of a priest, he knew pestilence, famine and war. Both of his parents were victims of the plagu e in 148O. His critics saw him as the heretic and a Protestant who laid the egg that Luther hatched. Many entertained opposing points of view. Erasmus was seen as a philosopher and