Plagiarism is a mistake, and one a student may come to regret very much. To avoid plagiarism, here's a handy definition of plagiarism you should familiarize yourself with, and some strategies for dealing with last minute paper panic that are good alternatives to plagiarism. Here are seven good reasons to write your own term papers and practice academic integrity.
Professors are smarter than you think. Cheating students greatly overestimate their ability to fool professors. Professors know how to prevent plagiarism. They also usually know when an essay paper isn’t written by the student who handed it in, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the language used in the paper is too complex. Perhaps the writing style of this paper does not match the student’s previous assignments. Perhaps more than one person handed in the exact same paper. (Don’t laugh. This has happened in my classes). Perhaps it’s just a hunch. And even if professors can’t prove that plagiarism occurred, they will definitely remember the plagiarized paper when it comes time to turn in grades. Which brings up my second point:
Professors hate plagiarizers. Professors don’t hate students who write lousy papers or turn them in late. They do, however, loathe students who plagiarize. They consider plagiarism to be a personal insult. Professors may be quite lenient about some things, but when it comes to plagiarism, expect nothing less than an extremely angry professor who shows no mercy.
Professors know how to use the web. All the professor has to do is type in unusual phrases from a suspicious paper into Google, and chances are the plagiarizer will get busted. I’ve caught papers that were plagiarized from Wikipedia, which boggles my mind. Do people think professors don’t know about Wikipedia? And professors know all about college essay plagiarism websites. For more sophisticated plagiarism, colleges and universities frequently purchase anti-plagiarism software. This doesn’t catch everybody, but it sure helps.
“Good” cheating takes a lot of effort. To prevent plagiarism, professors give assignments that are too specific for a student to plagiarize easily. This causes lazy plagiarizers to fail because their papers don’t match the assignment. Plagiarizers who want a good grade have to rework their materials quite a bit. At that point, it’s just as easy to write the paper honestly.
“Good” cheating can be expensive. Free papers are available on the Internet and elsewhere, but the majority of them are of questionable quality. You can, however, find sites all over the Internet where you can pay someone to write your paper. These are very expensive. And even though there’s no proof, your professor (who has the grade book) will still probably know that you didn’t write the paper.
You know better. Deep down, most students know that education is about more than that piece of paper that says you have a college degree. Cheating is dishonorable and shows a lack of maturity and self-respect. As Mr. Mackey from South Park would say, “Cheating is bad, m’kay?”
