Pitiful Problematic Plagiarism
Even though I have been told many stories about students plagiarising throughout my life, I have never witnessed a perpetrator of the action, nor have I done it myself. That isn’t to say, however, that I have no thought on the topic. In fact, the name of my publication can be connected to plagiarism.
To give some backstory on where the name of my publication came from, it is the motto of a fictional character named ‘Aristotle Means’, from the Phoenix Wright universe. Aristotle Means was a corrupt lawyer and teacher who taught an attorney’s course. His motto stems from the idea, that as long as you win a case, you have successfully done your job, no matter what you did to achieve that result. He would even fabricate evidence and accept bribes from students to give them good grades, though that’s for a different topic.
Students who plagiarise, most likely justify their actions with this mentality. Their purpose in school is to get good grades, right? Who cares how they did it? This mentality prevents the growth of a student’s mind.
As I have mentioned in my first article about education, I believe education should be trying to focus on the growth of students, not test how well they are already doing. The current education system promotes plagiarism, attempting to label numbers and letters onto a student’s work, whereas the one I proposed focuses on the growth and enthusiasm of a student towards work. With the revamped education system I offered, plagiarism would become null as with each writing piece, the quality would drastically change from piece to piece. The feedback offered for each work would also not be improved on, as students will not be taking the advice into mind as they copy the work of others. Not improving on the feedback means the the student shows no growth, thus failing their assignment.
What stops me from plagiarising are two things. One, it’s disrespectful to the creator of the original work. They most likely must have spent a lot of effort towards their creation and yet I have just taken their work to be used for my own ‘benefit’. If I were to put myself in their shoes, I would definitely not be content. It’s comparable to taking the art of others and posting it online, claiming it as my own creation.
My other reason relates to what I was talking about before. Plagiarism doesn’t help me learn anything… well, with anything. If I plagiarise and then submit work as my own, then when I look at the feedback, I’ll be seeing feedback for the person I stole from, not for me. The end result leaves me with no more knowledge than before I started the assignment. The only thing I can do with plagiarising is become a professional ‘Googler’.
Even though teachers often warn students about the penalties of plagiarising, an alarming amount of students do it anyway. A survey was held and it was found that approximately 71,300 undergraduates and 63% of them admitted to cheating on tests. In the end, however, I don’t care how many students plagiarise. If they plagiarise, good luck to them in the future. My current concern is my growth.
If you have anything to say about this article, feel free to do so, be it a comment about why I should care about the number of students plagiarising, or an error I have made in this article. Thank you for reading.
