To plagiarize, or not to plagiarize?

   In my Multimedia class (the purpose of this blog) on Thursday we discussed an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education which stated, "Plagiarism is running rampant on...college campuses" and that "...technology is partly to blame."  I can't say that I completely agree with these words.  I believe that, yes, the Internet has definitely made plagiarism much easier and more accessible, but I do not think it has led to an outbreak or rise in it.

   I believe that the main perpetrators in plagiarism are people who don't know what to do or what they are supposed to write about, and people who are lazy and just don't care to do the work themselves.  People have been stealing other people's work and passing it off for as long as literature has been around (and even before that if you count oral "literature", bards, etc.).

   The Internet has made it easier to plagiarize - all you have to do is Google your topic, find an article or a few quotes that please you then copy and paste them into a Word document.  Simple.  HOWEVER, when essays were still hand-written and researched in books or newspaper articles it was just as easy to copy down the information word for word.  As a matter of fact I think I can confidently say that I plagiarized once or twice in my past.  I'm certainly not proud of this fact, and yes it was due to laziness (and procrastination) but in my defense I must also tell you that I was in elementary school and while I did know it was wrong to just copy straight from a book I at least tried to not copy verbatim and tried to make it my own by re-arranging the information, paraphrasing it and adding my own little tidbits from class discussions.  (Besides, a 10-year old kid with A.D.D. who is up writing at midnight because she kept putting it off can only stare at hundreds of pages of 8-point font about the Caddo Indians for so long...)

   I guess if you consider all of the ways - search engines, software, etc. - that the Internet has it easier for Professors to discover plagiarism then yes, you can say it is responsible for a rise in it - but only because it makes it more know.  I'll relate it to something everyone can understand.  The World is round.  It has always been round.  Until someone went out and developed a way to study it, no one knew it, but after, everyone knew it (even if they didn't accept it right away).  Or take the air we breathe.  It's always been made up of oxygen and nitrogen and other gasses but again, until someone developed a way to take a closer look and study it... (need I continue?)

   So yes, the Internet has made it easier to plagiarize and yes it has made the fact that people plagiarize more well known but no, it has not made more people plagiarize.  Do you agree?