Plagiarism is a bad thing! Right?

What is plagiarism? In my words, this is when you as an author steals written material and treat the material like its your own. Before the world wide web, there were books that contained all the information. So if a student wanted to plagiarize, he would have to write the material down word by word. But since the student would have to write it down, he or she might not copy every single word. Unless the student is just desperate and has time to steal.

In the web world, all one has to do is copy and paste. This takes a micro second. You would think that people would give credit to the author, but they don't. They want to sound smart or be smart like the person they are stealing from. I agree that this copy and paste system is the new age of digital authorship. You don't have to credit the information you take.

As time flies, plagiarism is plaguing the literal world. Its up to the educational institutions to track down these word thieves. But the schools can't stop them all. The authors that produce material might as well make a site like Wiki. Since these amateurs wanna take your two sense and add it along theirs, why not help them?

Open your ears, I mean your eyes.

Some people don't research the material they encounter. They just go with the program. They assume that the material is correct, so they acknowledge the author for it. For example, Yahoo Answers is a site that people log on to ask questions randomly.

The problem comes in when the questions are answered by anyone with fingers. He or she might not have the proper expertise about the subject. Who is to blame for this abomination? The creators of the interactive forums or the new age digital authors? One would have to blame both. People are easily mislead with the wrong information. This is when the audience isn't listening, but participating. Gibson's theory plays a role here. So if someone copies and pastes an answer, the audience are going to participate with answers of their own.