Academic Honesty

Academic honesty is a serious topic. Too often we find students who find it much more convenient to copy and paste something off the Internet into a paper that is considered their own. I mean what is wrong with that? It saves time and you get a great grade on your paper. Who wouldn't want that? A mindset like that could get you into a lot of trouble. If you were to copy and paste information onto your paper without citing a source, that is called plagiarism. Plagiarism has many dire consequences and here are a few. If you are caught plagiarizing then you could get a zero on your paper! Imagine what that would do to your grade. Oh so you think that a zero is worth the risk? Well what if I were to tell you that you could also lose your scholarship and even get kicked out of school for plagiarizing? That's right you could suffer far worse than a zero on your paper, but it gets worse. The author of whatever information you copy could also sue you. Still thinking it's worth the risk? I didn't think so. So you want to know what plagiarism is so that you don't accidentally get caught up in it? The definition of plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work. Often times when plagiarism and other academic dishonesty's are committed is because the student is stressed out, has too much homework, or just doesn't have enough time to do the assignment. Imagine how stressed you would be if you had to go through one of the consequences listed above. It's just not worth it. If you are interested in knowing more ways to avoid plagiarism check out this link. My best advice to avoid plagiarism is to keep in your head the knowledge of why plagiarism is wrong. Even if you are hurting for time, do as much of your paper as you can and/or ask the teacher for more time. If the teacher won't give you more time, then turn your paper in as is. Any grade is better than a zero right? Just make sure to cite your sources, and keep credit to the original creator of the information you take in from a source. If you have trouble citing sources then don't worry! You can always use a citation machine.