Adrian Alston

Writing and Rhetoric

David Alfieri

19 February, 2020

Essay 1

Plagiarism has become such an easy thing to do in this current time and age. Being that technology has become so advanced, it has become a source for students to access all types of information. The information all through the internet doesn’t have much limitation or restrictions to it, so if a student wanted to copy and paste, it wouldn’t be much of a problem. In recent discussions of Plagiarism Lines Blur by Trip Gabriel, a controversial issue has been whether students plagiarize willingly. In this article some argue that students plagiarise without precaution, meaning they don’t second guess their actions when they copy and paste. However, others argue that students are uninformed in high school about plagiarism. Ms. Wilensky, an informal editor states, “If you’re taught how to closely read sources and synthesize them into your own original argument in middle and high school, you’re not going to be tempted to plagiarize in college”. This helps address the fact that there are students that transitioned from high school to college with some knowledge of plagiarism and those students wouldn’t have the thought of plagiarizing. But it still lets it be known that not all students have been taught what they need to know about plagiarism. There are still students that are bound to make mistakes because of the high schools they attended. This sparks another issue about students not being prepared in high school for college writing.

I personally feel like high schools are to blame. There are many students that are unaware of what they are doing in their writing, but there are just as many students that understand that they plagiarize in their writing. In high school, copy and paste can be done without a problem and it becomes so natural for a student to do. Every high school goes by different guidelines as well, so every student is bound to go to college with a different learning experience. This creates the divide in the students that are informed about  plagiarism while going into college and students that are not. For example in my high school I was taught about plagiarism, so citing has been a problem for me in college. I would say this makes me a more informed writer compared to ones that don’t know much about plagiarism. Students that are less informed could simply be learning from their mistakes. I say this because there shouldn’t be much of an expectation since they don’t have as much knowledge as others, but then again how would a college professor going over a students work know if his or her student is informed or not. 

Even though high schools play a big role they aren’t the only reason for the less experienced students. It connects to teachers and leads all the way to the DOE. Teachers may have to teach students, but they have to follow a certain curriculum, it’s not like they can change what they teach a class of students at any moment they want. This leads to the DOE. The DOE has to be addressed because they are the original creators of the curriculum, that teachers have to follow and students have to be taught. A new generation that’s so advanced as this one deserves a new curriculum to go by, to keep up with the day and age. The curriculum might just be too outdated for this new generation, this could be one of the main reasons students still have troubles with plagiarism. In the text it states, “The main reason it occurs, she said is because students leave high school unprepared for the intellectual rigors of college writing”. This connects back to the types of high schools students may have came from, as well as the teaching system they’ve experienced. All leading back to the bigger picture, the outdated curriculum students have to be taught. Without the DOE making a change in the teaching system there won’t be much of a difference, when it comes to students plagiarizing.  

Although there aren’t many students with knowledge of plagiarism, that doesn’t excuse the ones who are aware of it. There are students that plagiarize purposely and don’t care to put effort into their work. They understand their actions but don’t stop to think about the consequences. In the text it states, “Sarah Brookover, a senior at the Rutgers campus in Camden, N.J., said many of her classmates blithely cut and paste without attribution”(Gabrial). This perspective supports the fact that there are students who do plagiarize carelessly. This can make it seem like all students who copy and paste and do it without thinking of the consequences, but not all students know what consequences they may face if they copy and paste without citing. This issue is important because when speaking on students plagiarizing they all fall into the same category. There isn’t a split between the ones that know what they’re doing when they write papers and the ones that are going through a learning experience.

Plagiarism is an easy thing for students to do now that the internet makes it so simple to access all types of websites. There’s isn’t much holding a student back from simply copying and pasting information they found from the internet, in their paper. “Now we have a whole generation of students who’ve grown up with information that just seems to be hanging out there in cyberspace and doesn’t seem to have an author” said Teresa Fishman. The internet makes it easy for students to plagiarize, because it’s something that students have begun to do so naturally. Teaching systems must be corrected, so that students can prosper and make progress that’ll help them succeed in college, without dealing with high school struggles. High schools play a big role in a students first step into college, without the proper training they’ll fall time and time again, having to pick up the learning methods in colleges. Methods they should already know coming from high school.