Task 8 - Expository Paragraph

Why Students Do Copy-paste

          According to Wikipedia, ‘copy-paste’ or plagiarism is the act of taking another person's writing, conversation, song, or even idea and passing it off as your own. This includes information from web pages, books, songs, television shows, email messages, interviews, articles, artworks or any other medium. The reasons why students do copy-paste will be explained as follows.

          First, students do not know much if the act of ‘copy-paste’ is a kind of plagiarism. They often hear about plagiarism, know it is bad, but still, they keep on doing ‘copy-paste’ because what they know is it’s legal. The dictionary defines plagiarism as stealing of the ideas, words, work, or production of other people. Students copying the works of other people do not believe the original creators would catch them. They do not know that they will face some problems if they are indicated as a plagiators.

          Second, students who rush to do things on the last minute are meant to do the last thing that would make their tasks easier. They think, “if there is an easy way to reach their goals, then why we have to choose a difficult way?”, morover for those who are very busy and do their works in a deadline. This happens to almost all students who are busy with their activities and do not have sufficient time. ‘Copy-paste’ is the only way when they are in a thin ice. They do not think about the risk of doing that, the only thing that they know is their works is well done, then everything is alright.

          Third, students find the internet a good medium for searching and copying related topics. They think that the internet itself has provide what they want. So, if the internet itself has already provided the information that they want, they think it is such a legal thing to do. They do not realize that they are actually fooling theirselves when they are doing ‘copy-paste’. It is fooling theirselves because they do not think creative and critical to the way how on produce a work or an idea.  It is also habituate them to be lazy students. They will hang on internet to every work they will face, and if there is no internet, they think that they can not do anything more.

          Fourth, students are lack of knowledge about proper citations. Plagiarism could be avoided if all people who writes articles and research papers know when and how to cite the ideas and text that they had taken from other authors. The fact, there are so few people who understand the right way to cite the information that they have taken to their own works, so if the citation is not acceptable, it can also be indicated as plagiarism.

          In a nutshell, ‘copy-paste’ or plagiarism is dangerous, and the consequences are unimaginable because the law protects and respects intellectual property rights. The legal system is very keen in bringing justice to stolen intellectual property. However, although some works are difficult to track, publications will always be found and discovered in the internet. So, it depends on the students themselves, whether they realize or not that the act of ‘copy-paste’ is a bad thing and must be avoided.