Good writing is not easy to produce – it takes time & mental effort, even for experienced authors. It’s unsurprising that students are tempted to look for short cuts, especially when the student is experiencing writers’ block. But is there any harm in this practice, when it’s just a couple of lines?There are obvious ethical issues with copying someone else’s work & not giving due credit. On these though, it might be argued that plagiarism of the text itself is far less severe than plagiarism of ideas. Another issue is that there is no universal definition of plagiarism or accepted notion of how many consecutive words copied without giving credit would constitute an instance of plagiarism.
In that case, is it so wrong that a student chooses to copy one or two well written sentences that accurately convey a particular process, phenomenon or idea? To answer this we might turn the idea on its head, & ask why is it so difficult for that student to give credit to the original author of his choice sentences. There’s no argument that can be presented for not doing this simple task. Failing to do this is taking credit from another author’s carefully constructed choice words.As noted at the outset, good writing takes mental effort & time, so why should the original author be deprived of credit for his efforts? Using quotations from work rather than paraphrasing is preferable in some circumstances. A small change in wording can lead to subtle misinterpretation, particularly in the case of technical or scientific writing. Again, there is no real excuse for not giving credit to the original author.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5760589
