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Michelle Cleary Plagiarism

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With the ever-increasing wealth of information provided by a simple Internet search, students are finding their resource options growing. From hundreds of topic specific sources to completely written essays, students are challenged to use their own words. Michelle Cleary addresses the issues of plagiarism faced by students today while giving real-life solutions from an instructor’s view in her article, "Top 10 Reasons Students Plagiarize & What Teachers Can Do about It (With Apologies to David Letterman)". From research methods to writing instructions, the author uses a cause and effect scenario to illustrate the plagiarism problems and suggests methods that encourage academic success. Students struggle not only with the temptation to plagiarize, but also worry about inadvertently plagiarizing, and the ramifications of their actions. …show more content…

With the slightest effort, a search will produce a multitude of information. This information ranges from many resource articles to completely written essays on any given subject. The process of writing an essay begins. The student must then take this information into their internal storage, assimilate it, and regurgitate it in their own words. Notes are written, and an outline made. Students cite work that is taken directly from the articles, while some thoughts are not cited. Sometimes this works and sometimes it does not. To better guide students, Cleary suggests educators “Help students learn how to pace themselves and organize their work, especially if the task you have given is complex, and they are novice” (68). This will break down the large project in to smaller, more manageable tasks. It also becomes a challenge to separate one’s thought from the thoughts of others. Price states (qtd. in

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