Plagiarism and the Internet :: Cheating Education Essays

Plagiarism and the Internet The web today has everything at your fingertips and is a savior to any student trying to research a paper and is in need of information. You are able to look up any topic you want on the internet and in seconds everything you need to start your paper is right in front of you. There are even sites that allow students to look up their topic and let them receive papers that were already written by other student on that topic. Being able to take other peoples words and thoughts seem like the easiest way to go about things. You donà °t have to do any research, you donà °t have to organize your thoughts, and there is no long process of sitting down and actually writing a paper because it is already done for you. Students who decide to plagiarize think that they are taking a short cut and finding an easier way of doing things, but really they are just getting themselves in to a whole lot of trouble. Plagiarism can be defined as stealing and passing off ( the ideas or words of another) as your own or use someone elseà °s production as your own. (Merriam Webster Dictionary) When someone is using information from the internet or any website, they must cite the source from which they received the information. Many teachers or professors are trained to detect plagiarism. They can detect plagiarism by looking at the format of the paper, and by reviewing the bibliography and seeing if it matches the sources referred to in the paper that the student has written. There are many sources on the internet today that allow professors to enter just a couple of words from the paper in which they suspect plagiarism and they are able to find the sites that they may have plagiarized from. Many professors have different ways in dealing with plagiarism. Some may take the paper away and give the student a zero without any explanation, while others will take more drastic measures and fail the student for the semester. I must admit that it is very easy to take other peoples words and idea and use them as your own.