A colleague stormed into my office the other day waving papers in my face. “You won’t believe this!” she huffed, showing me an essay with a student’s name at the top. I knew where this was going. “Okay, now look at this,” and she put before me an identical essay pulled via Google from an internet site. I asked what punishment she had meted out. “I failed him,” she said smugly, “for the course, and I turned his name in to the Dean’s office.” I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but didn’t. “Why?” I queried. She gave me a horrified look. “It’s dishonest. It’s an affront to scholarship... It's, it's...” blah blah blah...  

I’m sure you’ve heard all the good reasons why plagiarism is deplorable, but seriously, is it that deplorable? I don’t like it myself, but when confronted with a plagiarist many academics act as if they’ve just cornered Joseph Mengele. Let’s grant that plagiarism is wrong; why is it considered despicable? Here are some of the answers I’ve gotten to this question.

1. Because it is dishonest. 

Yes it is, but mere dishonesty doesn’t merit the approbation plagiarism does. From an academic point of view, students lie to me all the time. Who hasn’t been told about a printer breaking down or a computer crashing (the modern equivalent of the dog eating an assignment)? One student of mine had three of his grandmothers die within weeks of each other. But even if we find out these are lies, we don’t get morally incensed. 

2. Because it penalizes honest students. 

How? By raising the bar and making everyone else look bad? First, you can’t very well use this objection once you catch the student because once you know they are plagiarizing it no longer makes others look bad. Second, no professor buys this. When I grade an essay, I always do so with an ideal essay in mind. This is why cheaters usually stand out--their papers are unusually good. Maybe the point here is that the plagiarist, if successful, is getting a good grade without having to do the work. But really smart students do this all the time. I have some students that have to work three or four times as hard as others to get the same grade, but I don't get incensed over the difference in genetics.

3. Because it degrades academic standards, degrees and institutions. 

Surely you jest! I can understand how it might do this if the school condoned the behavior, but no school does. If it does do these things then the institution deserves to be degraded! We aren’t talking about lying to the public or stealing or other sorts of motivations that might occur along with plagiarism in a public setting, for instance, when someone is awarded a pulitzer prize on the basis of misinformation. As we like to say: the plagiarist in school is mainly hurting herself.

4. Because it may cause a negative impact on professional standards if students are not learning the required topics properly. 

Well, maybe; but if students plagiarize that much, I doubt they will ever get into a position where they could do this kind of damage. Let’s face it, the serious professionals simply didn’t plagiarize.  

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like plagiarism, and I won’t take a paper that has been plagiarized or allow cheating on exams, but I’m not going to “go moral” on  someone who does and try to ruin their future. There’s an old saying in academia that the best textbooks are never used in classes... because they are used by professors to prepare for classes! So he who is without sin... and all that.