Does plagiarism matter?

Answer 1

Yes, plagiarism is theft at worst and being unoriginal at best.

Either way it devalues you as an Artist and your work.

Answer 2

As they say at Son of Citation Machine: "it is important for you to respect the time and creative effort of somebody. That creative person will soon be you, and you'll want respect too."

It also matters because it is a negation of learning. Sure, we may get SOMETHING if we re-type something or copy it by hand, but with cut-and-paste technology and printed-out purchased essays these days, there is virtually NO processing of information going on when someone plagiarizes. Even when my own students copy by hand, I can tell when it's not their words because they are using words that they have NO idea what they mean. That is not learning AND it's dishonest.

Kathleen Guinee and Maya B. Eagleton suggest methods to make connections in their English Journal article (registration required for full text, link below).

Finally, if one slips someone else's ideas, then they may also be undercutting their own arguments. If you have experts who agree with you, why not show it off, use their credentials to make your point? Show that you have put time and effort into your thinking and research.

Answer 3

Have you ever had an idea that you mentioned to someone else and then he/she took credit for it? Can you respect that person? If your answers are yes and no, how can you respect yourself if you plagiarize? I think plagiarism hurts the plagiarist the most, but he or she is too ignorant to realize it.

Answer 4

Of course it does. Plagerism is taking the ideas of others and passing them off as your own. So a person "writes" a book and wins all sorts of literary awards and gets very wealthy off of this book but the person who wrote it was actually this person's student a few years before. Is it right for that person to get the credit and monetary gains from the work of someone else? Same with grades. Someone else has done the work and done the thinking and structuring. The student copies it all and never learns to do those things for him/herself which carries over into life later when they become a less than optimally functioning member of society because they never learned how to extract from materials and choose the things that are important and phase them convincingly.

Answer 5

Absolutely! It's 100% cheating, pure and simple. If you didn't do the work and don't give credit to the one who did, then you took a shortcut.

This is why I make sure all my students know that I DO plagiarism checks and let them know the consequences involved if they're caught.

Answer 6

To plagiarize is to deny yourself the life long skills you will appreciate as you go through future life stages. It's a matter of self-respect, a desire to truly develop into a mature, honest and educated person. Be nice to yourself. You'll be happy you did, esp if you're young (<30). Besides, I think truly educated/honest men are very sexy.

Answer 7

Does plagiarism matter?

Answer 8

What do you mean by "matter"?

It matters in the sense that it is a problem and people should not engage in it as it is complete dishonesty. First, the person who is plagiarising is dishonest about the work they did (or did not do). Second, it is bad, because the original author does not get credit for their work.

It also matters in the sense that students get reprimanded and sometimes expelled from school for engaging in it.

Answer 9

let's change that question to... does stealing matter? plagiarism is just a fancy word for stealing... words, thoughts, opinions of someone else

Answer 10

Of course it does. Young children might not understand what that is exactly, especially when they do reports. As long as they don't copy word-for-word and make an attempt to put the information in their own words, they should be rewarded. For those who just copy, copy, copy... well, maybe they need an explanation that it's not right to do so.