Plagiorism Work Sheet

Plagiarism is borrowing someone else’s idea, theory, fact, pictures etc., without giving credit to author or resources. Even quoted and paraphrased facts or ideas from others should be followed by the description of specific sources in a proper format or style in paper. Without listing appropriate sources of ideas or facts which the writer borrowed in the body followed by footnotes or references, the paper will be violate the law of copyright and can be seriously punished by the law.

I have never learned that the plagiarism critically in my country, even though we use textbooks written in English and submit papers based on the idea from the books. Nobody argues about the plagiarism because of the reason that English is not only a mother language, but also the lack of knowledge in English writing.

In my country, there are no clear restrictions of plagiarism in writing paper, especially if it is not a direct copy of words or idea, which still should credit to the authors. Furthermore, I’m not sure whether it is protected under the intellectual property law or not.

The first time I heard about the plagiarism was when I came to the States to learn English about 10 years ago, and even at that time I remember, in ESL program, they didn’t deal the plagiarism strictly. I think the plagiarism become more and more issues in college in the States in these days to develop the learning skills of students and protect intellectual properties strongly by the law.

It is not easy to get comfortable with a writing style of perfect citation for the students who are not exposed in American school system, especially foreigners, and it is also easily ignored if the teachers who doesn’t care that much on the plagiarism. In that case, student who researches a lot has more possibility to commit violation of plagiarism without awareness.

I hope that for student from abroad should get informed about the plagiarism before they come to the State, and even early education system in public school, we need regular workshops to tell the plagiarism and practice students how to avoid it. After I practiced the rule of plagiarism, especially through the writing class, I feel that I could approach all of my paper within the appropriate frameworks to prevent plagiarism in future.