Bad Idea About Writing: Plagiarism Deserves to Be Punished

| Updated on February 28, 2024

With the development of the online world, plagiarism has become a huge problem. Today, it’s so easy to find information for any kind of academic assignment and copy it into your paper. The temptation to plagiarize someone else’s content is big as it saves time and energy for favorite activities. However, it doesn’t bring any other benefits. What’s more, plagiarism may lead to serious negative consequences. Before we consider why plagiarism is wrong, let’s have a closer look at its types. 

Different Kinds of Plagiarism 

Plagiarism varies in its forms, here are some of the most common types: 

  • direct plagiarism means deliberately copying someone’s writing without mentioning the original source of information;
  • mosaic plagiarism is when a writer uses phrases or parts from a particular material without adding quotation marks or modifying the original structure of the source. It may be both intended and unintended; 
  • self-plagiarism usually occurs in academic settings when students copy and paste part of their previously submitted papers or even give in the same work for two different projects;
  • accidental plagiarism happens when one misquotes the text taken from another writer or does not cite the source.

How to Prevent Plagiarism

Unintentional plagiarism is more common than it may seem to be. We often repeat someone else’s thoughts and use the ideas of peers or colleagues undeliberately. Unfortunately, it may result in a poor reputation and loss of trust in us. To make sure that there is no plagiarism in your work, you should turn to automated web tools. AI-based software can do all the job for you, you just need to insert your text into the tab of a plagiarism checker US and analyze the results. It will show you the percentage of content uniqueness and point out the sources with similar content. If you have used the same phrases or sentences as another writer, a web tool will give you possible suggestions on how to paraphrase those parts of the text. 

Why Plagiarism Must Be Punished ?

Plagiarism is viewed as an offense for multiple reasons. Let’s consider the most serious of them. 

1. It’s Cheating 

In its essence, plagiarism is a form of cheating. If you steal someone’s ideas, you are breaking the rules and acting unfairly towards your peers. By pretending that someone’s work was done by you, you violate common moral principles. Naturally, this type of behavior must be followed by punishment in order not to be repeated again.

2. It Disrupts Values 

Integrity is one of the core values in academic settings. It’s important to stay honest no matter what difficulties you face on your way to a degree. Using duplicate content in your papers means ruining the whole idea of education, which is to fill in your knowledge gaps. It becomes impossible for teachers to identify what you already know and what you should learn with their help. 

3. It’s Disrespectful Towards Others 

From an early age, we are taught to respect the work of others. No matter what aspects of life it comes to, we must appreciate the efforts of other people and not abuse them. Copying someone’s ideas without citing is absolutely disrespectful since it means taking for granted someone’s hard work.  

4. It Damages Your Image 

Reputation is a thing that must be earned for some time. However, it can be destroyed very fast and easily. If someone reveals plagiarism in your papers, your image will be ruined instantly. Chances are that neither professors nor your peers will treat you the same way anymore. Therefore, some punishment for plagiarism is something like a preventive measure against a bad reputation. 

5. It Devalues a Degree 

If everyone starts cheating and it becomes a new normal for all students, the quality of education will drop. The more students plagiarize, the less value their school programs have. Institutions that don’t follow the principles of integrity are not respected in the community. Their courses are not taken seriously because everybody knows it’s possible to complete them by submitting plagiarized works. Hence, to keep the value of degrees, plagiarism must be strictly checked and prohibited. 

Final Thoughts

Plagiarism comes in various forms and any of them cannot be justified. Students must be punished for copying someone’s work not only because it’s unfair towards their classmates, but also because it leads to multiple negative consequences, including the disruption of a value system, ruined reputation, and devalued degrees. Hopefully, this terrible trend will disappear in the near future.


Shinely Ainsworth

Shinely is a tech enthusiast with a bachelor of arts degree in English and Creative Writing. Later on, she turned towards technical writing and has been doing it since 2015. From there onwards, she has been consistently writing technical and troubleshooting blogs and articles. Shinely is a writer and editor with 5 years of experience in writing reviews, news, tips, and troubleshooting articles.

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