Plagiarism

Unintentional plagiarism is a serious issue because it reflects on our academic integrity. For every course here at UB, there is a section dedicated in the class’s syllabus regarding academic dishonesty. The issue of unintentional plagiarism comes up in every aspect of our lives in regards to music, art, college papers, technology, etc. There can even be lawsuits for serious offenses. You will even immediately fail the course your taking for the very first instance of plagiarism. When I was taking my honors seminar UGC 112, with Dr. Mcguire, he asked us to e-mail him common English mistakes students make when writing. For example, saying “Frank gave the bag to Ryan and I” when it should be “Frank gave the bag to Ryan and me.” A few students actually copied exact examples from various websites and emailed it to him. While it seems harmless to just copy facts on grammar mistakes simply because you’re lazy or find it trivial, it seriously reflected on the students because they were honors students. During class, Dr. Mcguire passed out the list of common mistakes with those examples plagiarized in their own column.

Thus, the best way to avoid unintentional dishonesty is just to cite, cite, and cite everything! Even if you have background knowledge on a topic, it’s best to give credit by mentioning it in the footnotes. I actually made this same mistake in my paper for Assignment 1 so it’s best to cite whatever you can. Another way to avoid plagiarism is to simply avoid “googling” ideas from sites like Sparknotes. Formulate your own opinion, rather than trying to find other ideas out through the Internet. It’s more than likely that every student in your class has already looked at Sparknotes too. Some may have copied directly from the website or just based an idea off of what they said. Even if you unintentionally tried to make a claim your own, just credit where credit is due.