From the beginning of recorded civilation the concept of stealing has been considered wrong by most social norms. One of the Ten Commandments delivered by Moses is Thou shall not steal. At that time and since, stealing or theft has carried with it penalties, ranging from the village thief having a hand cut off to Martha Stewart doing jail time for using insider stock information.
Not all theft is plagiarism, but all plagiarism is stealing. (Thesis Statement)? What do you Think? Plagiarism is defined as: “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.” 1 Academic plagiarism is the most common form and use of the word. In University circles, it is considered almost criminal to “borrow” someone else’s literary work. In fact most schools have severe punishments if a student is found to have plagiarized on a paper he or she submits as their own effort. The reason behind this is simply the fact that establishments of higher learning have a vested interest that they produce students who earn their degree by virtue of placing original thought to paper. In an age of almost unlimited access to research information via the internet and electronic libraries, it would seem to be impossible to conduct a research paper without doing at least some review of other peoples observation of a subject. “On the Turnitin plagiarism software web site the view is expressed that