Ethics of Plagarism

[MrLinus]

I've decided to start this thread because of a trend I've noticed here and in the kinds of papers I receive from students. I don't know whether it's because students are doing this more, I'm noticing it more or whether search engines are making it easier to find but I've noticed more plagarism than before. What I think surprises me the most is that this seems to be an acceptable activity.

Perhaps I'm old school but when I came on the Internet you respected people who spent the time to create the HowTos, tutorials, pictures, websites, etc. If you wanted to use their work, you sent off an email and asked; or at the least, you referenced where you sourced it and openly admitted it wasn't yours. It was akin to what, IMHO, true hacking was about. You found the solution yourself, albeit it wasn't a pretty one, you were, however, the one who coded it.

When submitting a paper you'd reference sections with appropriate footnotes. When I ask students why they plagarized they look at me dumbfounded. They apparantly didn't know what plagarism is (and for those unaware):

Sourced: Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Pronunciation: 'plA-j&-"rIz also -jE-&-
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -rized; -riz·ing
Etymology: plagiary
Date: 1716
transitive senses : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source
intransitive senses : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

So perhaps someone could explain to me why it is acceptable to claim that someone else's work is your own? Perhaps because of the advent of massive downloading and trading of warez and because it is just that easy to cut'n'paste. I dunno. Perhaps I'm too idealistic.

[FrameWork]

Plagiarism astonishes me, I can't imagine posting something I didn't even write and passing it off as my own work. It's just like lying, what's the point!

"Yeah I have like 5 girlfriends dude!" Turns out you don't, then your just a loser trying to impress someone. I bet this practice would stop if someone vigorously pursued those who engaged in it, or we could just contact parents worldwide and have them teach their kids this is wrong like they were supposed to in the first place. What a novel idea!

[DeadAddict]

It is not acceptable for anyone to say that it is their own work when they didn't even type one word of it
Credit and permission from the original writter should be gotten before submiting anything that was not written by them.
If permission is denied then it should not be submitted reguardless of how well written it is. and I consider this to be acceptable

when they use it as a guide to help them over the rough spots or when they have writers block . and the amount
of warez that are being traded doesn't not make it right to say I wrote this when it wasn't. and I also I wonder
how they would feel if they spent hours writing something that they were proud of and then someone came along
and copied and pasted it and said they wrote it, I know I would be pissed if that happened to me. so they shouldn't do it to other people

[rcgreen]

I don't want to diminish anyone's personal responsibility for
this behavior, but I also think that the educational system
encourages in by being too "results oriented". Instead of
encouraging students to learn "how to learn", they subject
them to a darwinian system in which grades are the
only thing that matters.

Schools provide a ?cookie-cutter? education, which compels children to vie "for petty and contemptible rewards,"

http://educationreformbooks.net/failure.htm

You see people come on this site asking for quick and
easy fixes for complex computer problems. The
"script kiddie" phenomenon is part of the same problem,
impatience.

[MrLinus]

but I also think that the educational system encourages in by being too "results oriented". Instead of
encouraging students to learn "how to learn", they subject them to a darwinian system in which grades are the
only thing that matters.

True to a degree. But when do students take responsibility for their own actions?

[rcgreen]

when do students take responsibility for their own actions?

No question, they have to be punished. Years later they will thank
the teachers who upheld strict ethical standards. It's better
to learn it in school than to later be fired from the New York Times
in a major scandal.

[MrLinus]

Hehe.. Ok.. so why is then acceptable to do it online in places like here? Evidentally it's not accepted in society (case in point, the New York Times situation) but apparently it is acceptable on the Internet. Why?

[FrameWork]

No question, they have to be punished. Years later they will thank
the teachers who upheld strict ethical standards.

My professor last year told us the first day "If I catch you plagiarizing you are to walk out the door and you are not to return!" He was an elderly fellow, but I’m sure he still knew his way around the net. I wasn't about to try and pull one over on him.

[cheyenne1212]

If your gonna plagarise you have to do right. Like change a lot of words. lol.

I've only plagarised once in my shcool year and that was in highschool. I'm a little nervous to do it in college. If your caught plagarising here at my college its an instant F in that class which sucks. Besides there software now that checks a paper against a database of professionaly written papers.

I think that students plagarise when they realize that they have a 7 page research paper due tommorrow and haven't done a thing to it yet. Thats when they turn to the net and start copying and pasting.

out of curiosity Ms.Mittens, What subject do you teach?

[MrLinus]

This semester I have two subjects: Network Game Administration and Advanced Network Security. One semester in the Adv Network Security I had 3 out of 4 teams caught plagarizing for their security policies they had to create (heck, some forgot to remove the University or company they "lifted" it from). It was unfortunate that individual members caused this to happen to teammates. I think it was a wake-up call for some (albeit a bit late since this was their last semester).