My name is Todd Gallagher. I’m a 33 year old man who answers questions for a living. Currently I’m in high school as a student as part of a social experiment. The following is one of the questions I’m taking on:
Does everyone plagiarize from the web?
Plagiarism didn’t come about simultaneously with Google. Martin Luther The King supposedly ripped off some of his doctoral thesis. However, it’s undeniable that the appeal of instantaneous cheating has captured the lazy hearts of students, teachers, and authors alike. The definition of plagiarism has been blurred, or at least that’s what we’d like to think because changing morals, like copying and pasting, is just plain easier.
A 2002 survey indicated that 50% of American high school students plagiarize.
Immediately following the election of Barack Obama, a drunk version of British journalist Adam Smith was filmed working on his article about the historic event, telling the cameraman, “Thank God for the BBC, because I’m cutting and pasting, baby!” It was seen all over YouTube and Smith, who described himself as a “hard news journalist” was criticized nationally.
Former chief of acquisitions for the South African National Defense Force, Shamim “Chippy” Shaik was stripped of his doctorate degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal after two-thirds of his doctoral thesis in Mechanical Engineering was found to be plagiarized.
It seems it’s not just unmotivated teens who cheat.
So the question is this: If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too? Well if the water under that bridge brought with it an A or a promotion or a cushy political job, then sure why not? Especially if the risks were low and you thought you were clever enough to cover your tracks.
In his book The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead, author David Callahan discusses his belief that people have two separate sets of morals, one that knows right and wrong and the differences between them, and another that sees success as the object, at any cost. However, he also believes that there has to be a breaking point: “Baseball reached that tipping point in the late 1990s. And I think universities are starting to swing back. There will be reform and a return to idealism. We establish a new set of rules for ethical conduct.”
Unfortunately for those in school here and now, those trying to educate themselves for the world outside of academics, 46% of teens say they must succeed no matter what the cost. And what’s worse is they are self-aware. When presented with a list of different groups of people, teens ranked themselves second to last place next to politicians.
So, until the pendulum swings back, all groups seem to have redefined what it means to cheat. Thus it’s up to each student to decide how much of that article on the Cold War should be paraphrased from Wikipedia before it counts as wrong. And no, the answer is not: all of it.
Tweet
The most rampant form of “plagiarism” today, in my opinion, is actually in everyday conversation. The number of people I know who will read something online or hear something on TV and then relate that opinion/point/logical deduction to other people without referencing where they’ve heard/read it is staggering to me.
It is insane how many times I’ve had a sports related discussion with a friend and at some point friend will relate a point Bill Simmons just made in an article.
With the insane amount of content out there to read and digest, its no surprise it then gets related in everyday conversation, but jeez, at least start by saying “i read this interesting article and it said blah blah…”
I think you did a good of answering you own question. Yes, everyone plagarizes from the web conciously or not. Newspaper’s are the worst offender’s. They steal more from blogs, twitter and message boards than anyone.
I’m going to steal a line from the movie Swinger’s. “I don’t know what the big deal is. Everybody steals from everybody. That’s movies.” If you ask me the same thing currently be applied when it comes to plagiarizing writing. The real question is how long before you start to see the idealistic backlash?