WHY PLAGIARISM IS CONSIDERED TO BE ACADEMIC DISHONESTY - Essay Example

Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s words or ideas without properly citing them and with the intentionsof passing them off as one’s own work (Wong, 2011). Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty because it involves a person, such as a student, cheating by taking credit for work that is not unique to them. By cheating with plagiarism, the student is using someone else’s work but letting their instructor or professor believe that the work is of their own creation.

This can also be accomplished if the person writing the paper does not acknowledge work they adapted from someone else. Just as a student is capable of looking at their friend’s answers during a test and then using those answers on their own exam, a student who plagiarizes uses someone else’s words for their own purpose (Gilmore, 2008). They treat another’s work as if it were their own. When a student plagiarizes and resorts to academic dishonesty, they are cheating themselves out of learning.

Instead of doing what they must to understand the topic or subject matter, they take the ideas or words that someone else has come up with to trick the instructor or professor into thinking that the student has come up with the ideas. As such, plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty, and cheating, because the student used immoral means of completing their assignment, claiming someone else’s hard work and unique thoughts for themselves (Whitley & Spiegel, 2002). References Gilmore, B. (2008).

Plagiarism: Why it happens and how to prevent it. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Whitley, B. E., & Spiegel, P. (2002). Academic dishonesty. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum. Wong, K. K. (2011). Avoiding plagiarism. Bloomington, IN: Iuniverse Incorporated.