Plagiarism Is No Good!

        I think that the “How to Avoid Plagiarism” article really helped me understand that you can easily avoid plagiarism by properly citing a work. Coming into college I understand that plagiarism is a very serious issue. In my high school you could get away with using somebody else’s ideas. Not that I plagiarize myself but I am going to need to make sure that I double check every time I write a paper for any class that I write down my own ideas. The article also gave me knowledge of when and when not to use quotations. Sometimes you can use quotations so that way you take up more of the word count in an essay but it would be more effective if you just put what really is important in the quote and then follow up with your own interpretation or meaning of it. Also I learned that there are many types of plagiarism like direct and indirect plagiarism. Sometimes you don’t even know that you could be plagiarizing without even knowing it.     

         I think it is important to take plagiarism seriously but from previous experience with teachers, sometimes I don’t get enough material to work with so it just feels like I am only summarizing or repeating what has already been said. I also think that if I were a author or somebody who has done research on something and I found out somebody used my sources without acknowledging my work would offend me because of all the hard work I’ve doen and you’ve stolen.