Plagiarism

              We now live in a digital age, because of this, we now have instant access to any information. Plagiarism is now so common, and is done unknowingly sometimes. Students struggle with how to quote someone else's work in a paper. The reason for this may be because it is knowledge that is expected to have been learned, but has never been taught. With professors cracking down on plagiarism, many are realizing the severity of the situation.
               In classes today, we are encouraged to place our values on grades and not the information learned. Until we learn to again have values based on education and not the grade, the cheating process will continue. With this instant age before us, cheating is made easier and students are caught less and less. Because we compare ourselves to others on day to day basis, we worry about other people’s opinions about us. We were always told when we were younger that we are special and unique. Now, we want to live up to this, and we want to believe that it’s true. When we think that we aren’t good enough we will put twice as much effort into making ourselves seem better. When we see words from someone else that are better than our own could ever be, we hinder our ability to see our own potential. We stop trying for unique and start to steal someone else’s image so we can get the credit. Cheating is no longer a thing for getting the good grades, it is now something used to make a name for ourselves.

                Cheating has become a harder problem than imagined. Sometime when we plagiarize, we chalk it up to laziness and that we didn’t have to time to cite that person into the paper. This may be the truth, but it’s not a laziness issue, it has become a heart issue. Society blinds us, trying so hard to fit its own mold of perfection.  When things don’t meet these expectations, we try for another way around. We want the easy way out, because we have grown up like this. Plagiarism is at the root of it all as a heart issue and we need to find our out where are values really are.