Plagiarism

Webster's Dictionary defines plagiarism as "transitive senses : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source; intransitive senses : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source." DePaul University defines it as "he direct copying of any source, such as written and verbal material, computer files, audio disks, video programs or musical scores, whether published or unpublished, in whole or part, without proper acknowledgement that it is someone else's; Copying of any source in whole or part with only minor changes in wording or syntax, even with acknowledgement; Submitting as one's own work a report, examination paper, computer file, lab report or other assigment that has been prepared by someone else, this includes research papers purchased from any other person or agency; The paraphrasing of another's work or ideas without proper acknowledgement. And that is what I was accused of on Monday. And no, I'm not kidding.

It was a research paper for my history class. We had to turn it in to turnitin.com who checks the paper against everything there is on the internet and certain other places for plagiarism. Apparently, mine showed up a lot of plagiarized paragraphs, many of which were quotes, with direct quoting and footnotes. But turnitin.com doesn't care about footnotes. They just check it. And so, I was accused. I ended up meeting with the teacher the next day, and I was surprised by how calm I acted and talked. i was fuming on the inside. I was so upset. So much so that I actually cried the night before, and I'm not a crier. Yet, this made me break down. Hell, even what my father is doing right now hasn't made me cry.

In the end, the teacher said I could redo the parts that turnitin.com said I plagiarized. I did, even though the rest of the day I seriously considered screwing it all and turning the paper in as it was. And as it was it was my OWN work; not someone else's. I thought, "Why should I have to redo a huge chunk of my paper because a stupid computer doesn't know how to read quotes and says my paragraphs are too similar to ones on the internet?" But I didn't. I wanted to, but if I did I would have gotten a 'D' or lower and I couldn't jeapordize myself like that. I've worked too hard to get to where I am and too close to graduating (next June), and as much as I would have loved to shove the paper in my professor's face and say I'm turning it in as is because it IS my own work, I'm not dumb. I know what would have happened. So that night I worked for hours on it, changing, adding, deleting, etc., major and important chunks of my paper. And then I turned it in to the professor. I did my part, and in my opinion, extra work too. Now, I wait. Que sera sera.