Why Plagiarism Is Bad

When we hear the word plagiarism a few words come to mind; words like, wrong, unethical, illegal, and dishonest. In todays society, plagiarism is actually accepted in certain areas. Plagiarism is not wholly bad in areas of society that involves art, but should be completely avoided in academia. There is a different meaning to the word for everything we do. In art, plagiarism isn't actually plagiarism. It is very common for Artists to refer to other artists work's to spark creative ideas. To most "copying...and reproducing are all important...ways of learning in the arts" (Nayak 51). Practicing at something that someone else created makes artists better at their talent. Just like we have to practice mimicking techniques for better writing, artists do the same to their art. Copying isn't such a horrible word in art, "not only are imitation and repetition of techniques allowed, they are also encouraged" (Nayak 51). Many

Unlike in art, plagiarism is actually illegal if a student is found guilty of doing it. Not many students even realize they are guilty of it, "students believe that copying and pasting material from the internet...is more than sufficient to pass of as assignments (Nayak 49). Students must be taught that even taking an idea from another person is plagiarism. Most think that the internet is just a tool to help them perfect their writing and credit to the sources are unnecessary, this is false. There a many techniques to avoid committing the crime. Swain lists some techniques, "avoid reading anything written by somebody else...always write down the sources of anything you consult...if you paraphrase someone else's ideas you still need to mention whose they are" (Swain 1). By doing this you should be safe from even accidentally plagiarizing. The main thing is just always give credit to your sources, by doing this you should be fine. Even though copying is encouraged in art, it is off limits in