Same Idea, Different Medium - Essay Example

Some victims of plagiarism have the reason that, actually their work is not plagiarized, but contain common knowledge while others are purely lazy to the extent that they plagiarize through “copy and paste” from an internet source. This paper analyzes and relates two articles; the in-class essay and the internet object (IO) that address the issue of plagiarism by focusing on two different examples. The article “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age” by Trip Gabriel, which appeared in “The New York Times” in August 1, 2010 was the in-class essay while the article “The Plagiarist’s Tale” by Lizzie Widdicombe, which was featured in “The New Yorker” in February 13, 2012 is the internet object.

Gabriel in her article “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age” writes about various students in learning institutions who have plagiarized their works from the internet (Gabriel, 2010). Consequently, Widdicombe in her article “The Plagiarist’s Tale” has analyzed a fiction novel tiled “Assassin of Secrets” by Quentin Roman, which was highly plagiarized from other fiction novels (Widdicombe, 2012). In both instances, the plagiarists, who are the students and the fiction novel author, did not formally acknowledge the source of information.

The in-class essay by Widdicombe and the “internet object” (IO) by Gabriel relate in that they both entail cases of plagiarism on two different levels; professional and academics. On one level, the in-class essay depicts plagiarism in a mass-market publishing while on the other level; the (IO) essay shows plagiarism in college academics. In essence, Widdicombe discusses how the author Quentin Rowan plagiarized his works from many different sources during his earlier writing career. Moreover, the article by Gabriel depicts how various students plagiarized their college assignments from the internet.

Widdicombe portrays how a professional author, Rowan, becomes mediocre in the field of fiction writing through copying excerpts from other published novels, without giving any credits (Widdicombe, 2012). Gabriel on her part presents a description on how college students knowingly or unknowingly copy and paste essays from internet sources, also without giving credits (Gabriel, 2010). Gabriel in the (IO) article presents three cases of plagiarism by students from different institutions. The students are ignorant of their ill act since they are not aware of the importance of giving credit or citing borrowed words.

Gabriel asserts that educators have discovered that students who use online information do not put into consideration originality, intellectual property and copyright issues. This is because in the digital technology, to “copy paste” is very easy. Widdicombe in the in-class article presents a case of plagiarism by Rowan, particularly in his novel “Assassins of Secrets”. Rowan was accused of including in his book more than thirty cases of plagiarism. Interestingly Rowan admitted that he had taken excerpts from books by different authors while the students admitted copying and pasting from online sources.

Academic assignments by students can be scrutinized for plagiarism through using a plagiarism software, however, the same is not possible for novels, and as a result, editors have to read manuscripts word by word if plagiarism is to be detected (Widdicombe, 2012). In many instances editors, discovered copied texts in