According to the Webster’s dictionary, plagiarism or to plagiarize means to steal or pass off someone else work, or ideas as your own. It is basically an act of fraud, using, or for lack of a better word stealing another’s work and not giving them credit. The question eventually leads to can ideas and words really be stolen? And according to the U.S Law the answer is most defiantly yes. The word Plagiarism, though, is not mentioned in any civil or criminal statue, so technically the concept of “plagiarism” isn’t present in a legal sense. Plagiarism is something that is not uncommon in schools these days. Students feel that it is a simpler way to get things done, the information that they need is already on the net, and also whatever is needed to be said has already been said so originality is not as unique anymore. Although it is weighed as academic dishonesty and a break of the journalistic ethics code, it is not a crime per say, but a serious ethical offense. The results in being caught in the act of plagiarism leads to penalties, expulsion and suspensions. …show more content…
It makes you wonder if the teachers are properly equipping the students, teaching them how to do research, how to express their creativity and then translate it onto paper, because that is something that a lot of people were not taught how to do, and also how to properly write a paper or whatever it is that they are doing in school. Not at all saying that it is the teacher’s fault that plagiarism is a problem that is prominent in high school, which eventually spills over to the college and university. So you wonder if people really know, or were taught how to write a proper