Journal Entry: Understanding Plagiarism

Nicole Pacheco

UNV 103

February 3, 2018

Candace Duffy

Journal Entry: Understanding Plagiarism

Plagiarism is taking someone else’s words and ideas and not giving credit to the person who thought of them or pretending those words/ideas are your own, in other words stealing someone else’s work. Plagiarism can also be failing to put a quote in quotations, giving false or incorrect information about the source of the quote, and copying sentence structure, but changing words so they are different, without giving credit. You can also self-plagiarize by turning in the same paper more than once.

I think students plagiarize for a number of reasons. Some of it has to do with not understanding why sources are important and what all should be cited. Some students are just sloppy when taking notes, which can cause confusion about the information and whether it was from a source or not. Others panic when they feel themselves in a high-pressure situation and having to meet a deadline.

You can avoid plagiarism by citing your work properly. Citing allows you to use exerts from texts to strengthen your paper. Another way is to make sure the information you are providing is put into your own words. If you use two or more words in a row from a resource make sure you use quotations and cite where the quote came from. Finally, include a reference page or work cited page with every paper.

This topic has really shown the importance of knowing what plagiarism is. Stealing someone else’s hard work is morally no better than stealing someone’s phone, credit card, or anything else for that matter. By plagiarizing you are showing you are incapable of sharing your own ideas and thoughts. Honestly, the biggest thing I learned was the consequences of plagiarism are a 100 times worse than getting a zero on a paper.