Powell 1
People have not been taught how to honestly produce their own work. As a result, we have a society that depends on the work of others to support them. Although students have been plagiarizing for a long time, it is still bad because the true authors do not get credit for their work, students do not get the proper education, and society gets a new generation of people who do not know how to do their own work. Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers define plagiarism as “borrowing another writer’s language, sentence structure, or ideas without proper acknowledgement is a form of dishonesty”. (498) True authors do not get credit for their own work when people steal it. If people can steal other’s work without repercussions, the incentive for people to write stuff that is worth anything goes down. It is important that people’s intellectual rights are protected so that people can continue to write good literature and publish scientific findings. If these rights are not protected then we will see a decline in the amount of quality literature that is published. Students do not get the proper education when they steal the work of others. Some plagiarism is unintentional. Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers said ”to prevent unintentional borrowing, resist the temptation to look at the source as you take notes-except when you are quoting”.(482) Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers also say how to avoid plagiarism when summarizing, “A summary should be written in your own words: if you use phrases from the source, put them in quotation marks”.(483) It results in students who will continue to depend on other people for the remainder of their lives. Powell 2
Society gets a new generation of people who do not know how to do their own work. Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers say “your research paper is a collaboration between you and your sources”.(499) Students become citizens. When those students become citizens who do not know how to do their own work, society as a whole gets harmed. Society gets a new
