Plagiarism and the Internet :: Free Essays Online

Plagiarism and the Internet Plagiarism is a form of theft in which someone not only steals someone elseà °s words or ideas but pretends that they invented them. Plagiarism can result in lawsuits when copyrights are violated, such as in the case of 2 Live Crew who used a Roy Orbison song without consent of the copyright owner. The lines that draw this plagiarism trap are sometimes obscured, but are clearly articulated in resources such as The Hamilton College Honor Code. If instructors assign readings such as these, students will be without excuse for this common form of cheating. With the tools of today as given by the Internet, students have more information at their fingertips than ever before. Information and sources are easily acquired and many web sites are even open strictly for the use of plagiarizing, providing essays and reports students can copy. Teachers and professors could frustrate themselves by trying to find which particular website a student used to plagiarize. Surveys reflect the high percentage of exasperated teachers who feel defeated in this war against plagiarism (www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism_stats.html, p. 1 of 2). Can students act to remedy this problem? They can wage war against the websites that aid students in cheating by trying to expose them to higher authorities. This may lead to the closer observance of the forming of these websites and considerably lessen that form of plagiarizing. Teachers and professors could tailor writing assignments to make it harder to be plagiarized or put more of the weight of the grade on in-class testing. This particular writing assignment might be hard to plagiarize because it had specified topics with three issues to be addressed in relation to one another. Perhaps creative assignments would aid in the fight. Finally, students with