Plagiarism and the Internet

I remember digging through the rows of Dewey decimal system file cabinets full of 3” x 5” index cards looking for reference books that pertained to a report that I was writing, going to the sections of the library, pulling the books, if I could find them, off the bookshelves, taking a stack over to the table and going through them, copying down the author’s name, title of the book etc., to make a bibliography. We walked to school barefooted back then, uphill both ways, through the snow, and we liked it!

Today, we just type in a few words at Google, popping up thousands of references to use, just copy and paste sentences in the paper, paraphrase it and then consider that we haven’t really stolen an idea or plagiarized the work of someone else. However, while attending school here for three terms I found out that you CAN”T DO THAT, they will take away your birthday, spank you, and destroy your entire life. They have the CIA type of tools and software to find out exactly where you got your information. Now how is that fair, they want me to work, use my brain and write my own ideas, which need to be supported by someone that actually knows what they are talking about because I’m just a student who knows nothing and hardly worth the effort of reading, especially when it’s not even my own ideas and I haven’t properly cited the work that I’ve stolen! How is that fair!

I admit I wouldn’t want anyone to steal my work, but I don’t really consider it stealing. Stealing is downloading 9,000 MP3s off of BitTorrent, a file sharing application, with nobody paying anything for them. Nobody having the incentive to compose music anymore. The thieves not even having enough time to listen, appreciate, and enjoy the music anyway; their greed to have everything keeping them so busy downloading, “I GOT TO HAVE EVERY ONE!, madness because of some compulsive-obsessive disorder passed onto them from their “long haired Vietnam protesting,hippie, drug damaged parents!” not a law-abiding, conservative, Mr. Rodgers do-gooder like me! Yeah right.

I have this bad habit of stepping back and looking at the big picture. I see myself stealing other’s ideas and not liking it, I see myself being lazy and inconsiderate of the time and efforts of others, I see the wrong in the whole situation. I just don’t see how the heck I am supposed to compose a paper with less than about 30% reference material and 70% of my own ideas when I’ve never done a darn thing in my life concerning most of the topics worthy of writing about for a academic research paper, it’s a real dilemma.

It’s time to put the nose to the grindstone and figure this out. My plan is to read about ten academic journals, get their ideas and then consolidate their opinions into an argument and then derive a conclusion from it all in my paper. Give credit to their ideas, rebuttal and/or agreement without much foundationn or qualification, and hopefully get a passing grade on the papers that I write in the future.

Then I have to FORMAT it in a very precise manner,it's like syntax for the literary community, imagine that, them telling me how to do something, who do they think they are anyway! I guess they got PHDs and know what they are talking about, I'm just venting, it's part of my healing process, I hate to look at the real world, see where I am in it, at the bottom of the food chain, the off cast chaff, the tenement worker, the laborer, a tool for the guys on top. I have little or no responsibility, is this how you get ahead, you gather responsibility, you start thinking, writing and publishing papers in an accepted format, pull the sword of "Excelsior" ( Excalibur)  from the stone! Become the great King Arthur of Camelot. Oh, well at least I still have my dreams, they can't really take away my birthday, my life is already a shambles and can't get much worse. Maybe there is something to this giving credit where credit is due. Something to this learning and using APA format, maybe my dreams will come true, maybe I’ll rise from the ashes and become the Phoenix, bring joy to the world and everlasting happiness to those around me, maybe I’ll just pass this course and owe a few more thousand dollars on my student loan!

Does that seem a little bit melodramatic to you? Have a great day! I did.