In Brent Staples
essay "Cutting and Pasting", (2010) he
argues that students who plagiarize are likely to fall behind in the understanding
and learning of their work. Staples give us comparisons of cheating behavior studies
done by Professor Pritchard and his colleagues that proved plagiarism is indeed
linked to failure. Staples passionately try to inform his readers of the importance
of being original in order to get students to develop their minds and critical
thinking. This essay is clearly directed to all students and alerts them to
avoid plagiarism indefinitely.
I am enlightened by
Staples essay. I agree with Staples that plagiarism defeats the purpose of
learning. If students copy and paste all the time, what are they gaining? It is
also true that plagiarism can lead to being repetitive and can infect all area
of a person’s life. All students can relate to this essay as to avoid copying
and pasting, but there will always be some to take advice for granted. I
believe most people plagiarize because of being lazy, not thoughtful, or last
minute. If more students were original, then our universities would have higher
intellectual environments.
Staples keep his
essay very informative about what need to be done about plagiarism. He relates plagiarism
to our current society when he says, “They become like rap musicians who
construct what they describe as new works by “sampling” (which is to say,
cutting and pasting) beats and refrains from the works of others.”(pg. 148) His
choice of words also raises an issue of judgment. He states that he bases his
assumptions that students plagiarize off written in-class assignments can
compare them with their other papers. Though odds point to someone in his class
will cheat, he does not consider a student’s writing development or those who
actually worked hard on their original work. One overall moral that is imbedded
into this essay is that teachers should not judge students and students should
not cheat.
