Why Is Avoiding Plagiarism Important?
With the vast amount of information available today, plagiarism is easier than ever. However, you must avoid plagiarizing the work of others because doing so violates a number of legal and ethical boundaries.
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Definition
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Plagiarism is like pickpocketing someone's brain. Plagiarism is the act of taking the ideas and words of another and passing them off as your own. You must give credit for your sources of information, or you have committed plagiarism.
History
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Plagiarism has not always been so taboo; Shakespeare is known to have taken vast amounts of text directly from the history books of his time. However, many governments now protect the rights of people to own and market original ideas.
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Misconceptions
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Plagiarism is not always deliberate. If you use a source and fail to credit it properly, you have also committed plagiarism. Therefore, when doing any sort of writing, you must be careful to be original and to cite properly.
Ethics
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Not only is plagiarism a violation of an author's legal property rights, but the act is also unethical. When you take credit for another person's work, you falsely represent yourself to your audience.
Penalties
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Failing a class due to plagiarism is easily avoidable. Penalties for plagiarism can be numerous. As a student, you can fail an assignment or even a whole class; as a professor, you can lose your job and your reputation. As a professional writer, you can lose your livelihood by failing to give due credit to other writers.
Prevention/Solution
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When doing research, make sure you are always quoting and citing properly based on your discipline. Double-check your work to make sure you haven't accidentally quoted another author without proper citation.
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References
Resources
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