Post by skylersobeski on Sept 14, 2014 18:58:32 GMT
Plagiarism is a way of saying that you are incapable of thinking for yourself. By taking someone else's words, you are trying to claim their knowledge as your own. In Paul Tolme's case, I also find it quite humorous that the author of "Shadow Bear" would plagiarize his article about black footed ferrets. It is pretty irrelevant to her romantic story. She set herself up for the trouble she got in and people's reaction to it. It could have easily been avoided. By doing what she did, she downgraded herself as a writer and a human being. Not to say that people don't make mistakes and that she should be thought of as a horrible person, but it is as simple as putting quotation marks and citing the words you used. I give Paul Tolme credit for the way he handled the situation, if I was him I would be upset. If people wouldn't have found out about the plagiarism, the words in her book would have been thought of as her own by everyone else, and that isn't fair to Paul. He obviously put a lot of time and research to his project on the ferrets, and for her to simply copy and paste his findings into a book is pretty shallow. Plagiarizing isn't something to be proud of. There isn't any reason to be proud of your writing if it wasn't something you came up with on your own. I think the problem with plagiarism today in high school and college is more of a completing the project to get a good grade rather than to actually gain knowledge and apply it in your own words.