“Internet Plagiarism: A Growing Trend?”

     Plagiarism, what is it exactly, and why do most colleges and universities have such stringent rules and strict penalties and consequences for those who are found guilty of this offense? Plagiarism is actually a form of theft and can carry with it the same sense of violation and betrayal as does stealing someone’s credit card, checkbook, wallet, artwork or precious heirloom, such as Grand mom’s wedding ring, or Dad’s stamp collection. According to the online Encarta dictionary, plagiarism is the process or act of stealing someone else’s thoughts or another person’s ideas or written words and claiming them as your own. It is an act of writing what someone else has said verbatim without properly citing the origin or giving due credit to whom credit is due.

            With the popularity or resources readily available and easily attainable via the “information super highway”, “Internet Plagiarism” is becoming a growing problem, especially among college and university students. Information, research, and reference material is floating in a virtual vast sea of data to be viewed and accessed at the ‘push of a button’ or ‘click of a link’ and then “X’d” out and cast back into the deep ocean of technological text, making it very difficult to verify the source of that collected information.  The internet has change the world of writing term and research papers for college students around the world.  More and more students who are required to write many term and research papers throughout their educational career, are opting to retrieve there information from Web sites, and online reference sources. Because of this phenomenon, it becomes very difficult to track or trace whether or not a student is properly citing work attained from the internet. A borrowed line here, a slight paraphrase there inserted falsely into a students work can very easily go unnoticed, yet be illegal. There are even online sources or companies that are selling papers to be plagiarized to students for the “right price”.  This is a problem, and regardless of your personal convictions, is a crime, especially against the person or author of whose work you “borrowed” and called your own. It is something that may be done unconsciously and may need to be brought to your attention; I know that it has been brought to mine as a point of caution and notation. Since “Internet Plagiarism” has been a slow growing epidemic, it may be time to bring the problem to light, call writers and students to accountability, and perhaps protect and advocate for the ethics of writing.

Let’s think about this.

David Blakesley and Collin Brooke’s article “Visual Rhetoric” struck a nerve in me. The article made me think not only about the concepts that they were talking about what but what my mind thought about when I was reading the article. My immediate interpretation was that the visual means in which something is organized provides a necessary assessment of what the reader is reading and provides the momentum for the reader to actively participate in the mechanics of reading and distinguishing the important parts of the segment.

For example, the way that a specific website is set up. If you go to the social networking website, Facebook , the organization is easy to navigate. On the top of the homepage, tabs indicate the each sections of your personalized area of Facebook. In addition, the homepage is set up like a newspaper listing all the headlines so you know immediately what your friends are up to. In the right corner, where visually your eyes go to first is your status and your friend’s status which is what you want to see first. However, Facebook does make an error by putting advertisements on the left hand side. CNN proves their marketing genius and understands the idea of Visual Rhetoric when they place ads on the right side where the viewers look first. CNN’s website makes it easy for the reader to interpret the information easily and efficiently.

Organization is the most important means of visual identity and without divisions into the must read and the what we can wait to read later browsing the Internet becomes increasingly difficult and takes more effort.

Why am I so angry?

I’m not the technology queen. In fact, I am far from it. Most of the time, I’m screaming at my computer and I check my email and Instant message. I joined Facebook because my friend made me an account. Now, like the rest of the population, I am addicted.

Learning about such ideas like a controversy about a girl posting a vlog on YouTube as lonelygirl15

and how this “real” girl was scripted and hired to begin a new form of media, I was disgusted. I grew up on TV and Internet TV seems dissatisfying and wrong on a moral level. Why should I buy into something that is suppose to be from the heart? And of course the articles that I read and the more that I learned about Bree and her fake team I became angry.

So is this Bree conspiracy like a virtual rape? Was I raped after being gullible and believing this girl? Is it weird that I am cursing myself for believing this girl after what she did? Or do I have an obligation to accept this new culture?

What does this have to say about other cultures that are being formed on the Internet? I have no idea to react to how someone can actually be assaulted and raped in a MUD environment. The Internet is an arena for the transfer of information, but what happens when we are violating our basic human interest?

I have posed a lot of questions since I’m not sure of the answers. I am truly baffled and I am not sure how to understand. I had to call my friend–a Network Administrator–to ask him a dozen questions about MUDS and how everyday actions can play and how rapes can occur. “A Rape in Cyberspace: or How and Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society” by Julian Dibbell explains how a different dimension was changed by a single action.

In the end, I am angry about something I have no control over and something that I do not understand.

Who Am We? We are a new breed of people.

This article disturbed me but at the same time I knew that it was possible for people to enter online communities and have an entirely new persona. This article only came out ten years ago, but couples had problems of infidelity in the last ten years since the partners were online with cyber sexual partners. Where is the ethical line of committing the sin of unfaithfulness? When is it OK and when isn’t it? Who makes the determination? Maybe the wife doesn’t want to be in a position where she is belittled and slandered by morally degrading ideas and words. In an online world, a different dimension if you will, the husband can express these ideas. No longer does the online user’s wife need to be involved. Suddenly, and without very much effort, both people are happy.

On the other end of the spectrum, a physics student without an evolved personality and lacking social skills can participate in a multi-user domain and become engaged and have intimate moments with another player, or individual. How does this help the self-esteem of the physics student without any to begin with? It drops. The line becomes bold and no longer opaque. No gray area exists when an engagement occurs online. True emotions that are very real become overpowering. How do you break off a relationship that has become so important to you? But with online identities, the idea of a person that you become intimate with is not the same person that you are.

Where does the idea of personality and identities antiquate? Will my feelings be hurt when I no longer am engaged with my fellow MUD member? What about the social lacking individuals? Do MUDs and RPGs or MMPORGS allow individuals to socially adapt and become control in situation?

I dare you to walk around and notice those individuals and take a moment. Look around the grocery store or the shopping mall. How many people are socially inept? What is the difference if the shopping mall was in the MUD, RPG, or MMPORG?