Plagiarism - Rachelle Rosano

The first time I ever heard the word plagiarism was during a report I was doing on giraffes in the second grade. I went up to the class, and started reading this web article I thought was really fascinating. After my teacher took a look at the printed papers, she told me what it was, and that it was wrong. She still gave me the B for a good presentation, but the thing is, is that that was second grade. Surely enough, I heard a lot more about this "plagiarism" as time went on, and F's were scribbled on students' essays along with some serious trouble throughout then until now. What I learned over the course of my educational career is that the consequences for plagiarizing is quite intense and only gets worse, seeing that now in high school, a referral, conference, and Saturday school is required for those students who think they can pass on someone else's work as their own. More so, once a student is caught for plagiarizing in a university, not only does the student get kicked out, but it goes onto their record, diminishing their chances of getting into a different school. Plagiarizing does not get students anywhere with their learning. These writing assignments are assigned for a purpose, and there is no point in copying and pasting someone else's work and unjustly putting your name to replace the author's. Suffering these consequences is not worth it, and that is why plagiarism is wrong.