Monday, February 27, 2006

Plagiarism

Joseph Epstein examines plagiarism and notes that he's never encountered any in his career as a university professor.

In addition to my consulting practice, I teach a business law class at a community college where I used to run across cases that were not even close calls. Some students would just flat-out copy material and pass it off as their own. We've since changed the paper requirement to make it more difficult to plagiarize and the cases have dropped - so far - to zero.

Epstein notes that plagiarism has long terrified him as a writer. That may be a common fear. You write a passage and worry that it may resemble something you read five years ago.

That worry, however, may be your greatest safeguard.

[HT: Arts & Letters Daily ]

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