Plagiarism
In the United Sates and as well as many other different countries plagiarism is frowned upon and can have serious consequences, in certain countries and cultures they don’t see copying someone else’s work and calling it there own against the law and shameful some see it as common knowledge and others see it as there is no wrong doing when it comes to plagiarism. In the article that Sowden wrote he talks about different cultures and how they view cultures and that we shouldn’t stereotype them with the culture and background that they come from because in China and other Asian countries they don’t see it as a wrong doing and it is more of a learning skill and something that they are taught. He talks about how when multilingual students come to America and get their education, the ones that come her and want to identify with a foreign country are the ones that are willing to change and will follow the rules when it comes to plagiarism. Sowden talks about how we all plagiarize with certain ideas because they first started somewhere and even though we think of these ideas that come into our head it is still plagiarizing because it was generally not our own idea it was different ideas and thoughts that come together to make up an idea. Sowden talks how there will always be plagiarism in certain cases but there are certain ways and ideas that we can do to stop plagiarizing, one of the ways is doing an oral presentation because when doing an oral presentation we have to use our own words to describe and talk about certain topics and when doing an oral presentation it is coming from our own words and not someone else’s words. In class we listened to an NPR radio talk show talking about plagiarism in the education system and how students don’t plagiarize when writing term papers and essays. They interviewed a handful of people and asking them about plagiarism and how they felt about it. One of the students talked about how in the morning when getting ready for the day or driving in her car to school and work she reads newspapers, listens to the news on TV or radio stations and says that we gather so much information in a day that when she starts thinking about a certain topic she wasn’t sure if it was an idea that she came up with herself or if it was from an idea that she heard or read when doing daily things we sometimes aren’t sure who’s idea it is and that we can be plagiarizing but we don’t realize it and I completely agree with that statement. We all listen to multiple things a day whether it’s having a conversation with someone about a certain topic, listening to the news, or reading an article in a magazine. Everyday we gain so much information and knowledge that when needing to write a paper or when we need to come up with a certain topic with a class we could be plagiarizing someone else’s work and not even realize that we are doing so. In that radio talk show it also stated that a kid thought he came up with an idea on his own and yet the professor told him no that wasn’t his idea because he has heard that Idea before and called it plagiarizing even though the student didn’t realize that he did. In the article Plagiarism Overseas Phan Le Ha states a question against Sowdens article “Is it fair to expect to know all about citation and referencing straightway?”(Le Ha p.77) I do think that when any culture around the world wants to go and study abroad and get an education there they need to know about certain rules and what harsh punishments go along with something if they disobey that law. Even though going into college and most of my high school career I didn’t completely understand certain ways to reference things when writing a paper and making sure to not plagiarize but I at least had an idea of what I was doing. I do think that when cultures come over to the United States that they need to know or at least understand that we don’t plagiarize and even though in most university when signing up for
