Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a big problem in American high schools and colleges. Why is this a big problem? I think it personally has to do with the competition in the classroom. Schools are more competitive than ever. The standards have been set and many students believe they need to cheat to achieve these requirements. Ninety-percent of college students believe that cheaters never get caught. For the most part these students are right. Professors are reading so many papers they don’t pick up on plagiarism. According to plagiarism.org, ninety-percent of plagiarizing college students claim to never being caught or disciplined. The whole system is messed up. If College students don’t see anything wrong with plagiarism, and the college doesn’t do anything to catch and punish these students, then how is plagiarism going to be stopped? The penalties for plagiarism are rather high but who cares if the university isn’t going to ever know.
The standards that define plagiarism are rather clear. I think they should be followed closely. For example, if a student forgets to attribute a source, meaning, to claim another’s knowledge as his or her own, the student should be punished. The student doesn’t have any authority. Although it sounds severe, this logic should be used in all degrees of plagiarism. If the rules are not enforced in this area then it will carry over to other plagiarism, ie copying complete papers off the internet. It makes me mad that someone who doesn’t even write their own papers is earning the same degree as me while I had to slave away at all my papers.