Monday, January 14, 2008

Victim!

Plagiarism (n.) [pley-juh-riz-uhm, -jee-uh-riz-]
1. 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.
2. something used and represented in this manner.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006


You know, no one wakes up in the morning and says, "I'm pretty sure someone is going to steal my original thought or idea today." It's just not something you think about. You don't send out an email and thinks, "Oh, Gosh. I hope someone doesn't cut and paste this and then erase my name and put his own at the bottom."

Plagiarism is one of those little evils that catches you when you're least expecting it. I stand before you today, a victim of plagiarism. I now know how it feels to see my words and thoughts with someone else's name attached. It's a bitter sweet feeling, something smashed between "That dirty rat." and "Wow, I guess he thought he couldn't have said it better." And although I know that anyone I would steal the original thoughts of would probably never read what I have written, those mixed and confusing feelings will forever keep me properly paraphrasing and documenting any piece of writing that is not my own.

2 comments:

Natalie said...

what happened?!

Mary said...

No kidding! I want to know what happened too!

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