Atal Nauhria
Blog #8
Issue # 1
1.30 - 2.18

There is a question in every student mind that what is plagiarism and what is the appropriate punishment for the plagiarism. Somebody will thought that it is okay to use outside resources for their work without any reference, but this thing considered as plagiarism. I believe that there should be punishment for the students, who plagiarized, depending on the level of the students. For example, Haley was an high school student and she plagiarized twice. So, there is no way that school could have excused for her work. Moreover, she knew that she was doing wrong, which could creates a problem for her. I agreed with the school decision because schools wanted the students to be confident and independent rather than rely on outside resources. But, Marita and Jamal's case were totally different than Marita because they didn't know that they were plagiarizing; moreover Marita did not know the definition of plagiarism. Marita and Jamal were both excused from plagiarism because Marita was just a freshman; however she did this once and Jamal survived for his excellent writing capability. I agreed with Tanapol that punishment varies in all three cases and they should not be punished in the same way. Due to this reason, Jamal and Marita survive and Haley get expelled from the school.
In the end, school should motivate students, conduct programs to avoid plagiarism because students have the ability for their work.

"No sweat, no sweet" runs an old proverb. Marita and Haley both want to choose easy way then others. Haley knew her action was wrong, on the other hand Marita did not know behavior was incorrect. I think they do not know exactly definition of plagiarism so they need to educate more by school. Our class also educated about plagiarism in a month, at first time we did not know accuracy what plagiarism is. After we wrote some summary papers and discus plagiarism, we finally know that. In this way, we were educated naturally in class by class. It method was good for students because students can take to like a duck to water. I suggest school should make one class that about plagiarism for educating students like survey class. It will guarantee that students protect plagiarised and know right of writing.

As a college student, it is easy to involve in plagiarism. In this developed generation, we have plenty of methods and sources to get enormous informations. For example, numerous researches, papers, opinions, and etc... are overflowing in internet websites, and we can easily borrow some books from libraries. These kind of educational environment easilly lead students to get involing in plagiarism; Furthermore, tough assignment, peer-pressure, lack of knowledge, also effect to it. Haley, Marita, and Jamal, they all have their own academic difficulty. Haley had given tough assignment ,so she used the internet, Marita had lack of knowlegde of plagiarism; therefore she used encyclopedia, and Jamal had some peer-pressure; so he copied some words from old magazine. All of them were punished by their institution, but the level of punishment was vary. It sounds unfair to me, because they are all plagiarized, whether they did intensionally or not, the important fact is that they all misbehaved; therefore, they should be punished equally. People can not distinguish perfectly whether people plagiarize intentionally or not, if someone insist reasonably.

David Oh

While reading and seeing the article and movie about plagiarism, one sensitive problem was the seriousness of the punishment of it. Even reading the same article, sometimes it seems too heavy, but sometimes it seems too heavy. Maybe the teachers and the student who were in that case would agonize about it also. For that reason, there should be a general standard rule of the plagiarism. How much student plagiarized? How many times they plagiarized? Were they educated about plagiarism in public organ? These things could be the criterions. For example, Haley plagiarized two times, 20% of her paper was not her own; moreover, she knew that she was plagiarizing, so she had most harsh punishment. In Marita’s case, it was her first time and she did not know that she was plagiarizing. The author did not mentioned about the punishment, but maybe it was not very serious. However, there could be some special situation, so the teachers should not only hold fast to the rules but also need some flexibility. For instance, William made Jamal to use his sentence but not allow mentioning his name, so he got caught for plagiarism. As a movie, he should not punish for plagiarism.

What kind of punishments can be appropriate to apply for plagiarism? Don't you ever think that Haley's result was very harsh? Compared to Haley's case, Jamal was not given any punishment, even though he absolutely plagiarized William's works. According to the video, his plagiarism was forgiven by William's permission. Does that mean people can copy other works if there is a permission? Then, Haley could not be punished if she had have permissions. I argue that Jamal should have been punished, even though there was William's permission; unless, many people would use other works with permissions. I also agreed with Umi's words that different punishments should be given by how severe mistakes were.