Plagiarism

There are many reasons to NOT plagiarize, however, the best reasons are because:

• proper citations support strong academic work
• you want to respect other people's ideas 
• honesty is a commendable characteristic
• you want to give credit where credit is due 

Giving proper credit is an important skill to learn while you are in school. There are professionals in many different fields who have had their credibility or reputation shaken after using the ideas or work of others. 

Consider music. Have you ever listened to a song and been reminded of another? Have you ever heard lyrics that seemed ripped off? This happens, and it is somewhat common for musicians to borrow aspects of other artist’s work when creating their own, whether by accident or on purpose. Check out this list of songs that have faced plagiarism disputes. Not only have these disputes sometimes resulted in lawsuits that have had huge financial losses for the musicians, the creative reputation of these musicians was called into question. When people started pointing out the similarities between his song, Shape of You and TLC's No Scrubs, Ed Sheeran credited the original songwriters of No Scrubs as co-writers of Shape of You. Although we will likely never know if Ed Sheeran’s plagiarism of No Scrubs was accidental or purposeful, he fixed the problem by making sure to provide proper credit to the ideas of others that may have influenced his work. 

Like Ed Sheeran, if you find yourself plagiarizing, you can fix it. All you need to do is give proper citations whenever you use someone else's ideas.

While in school, there can be serious consequences for plagiarism. You can read about those in the Student Code of Conduct. 

Here are some recent examples of plagiarism in the news: