Plagiarism, one of the main scourges of the academic life, is quite an easy concept, but, nonetheless, harmful.

In short, to plagiarize means to steal someone elses idea or part of work and use it as your own. Plagiarism can include any type of information like from internet, scripts, television shows, interviews, articles, speeches, blogs or any other source. Plagiarism allegations can cause a student to be suspended or expelled. Their academic record can reflect the ethics offense, possibly causing the student to be barred from entering college from high school or another college. But why do students plagiarize ? In my opinion,plagiarism may not be as bad as all think it is. Normally,when doing a project,students usually tend to read similar papers and see how things should be done.Its like looking for shapes in clouds.If one sees a fish and tells the other one,automatically the other one sees a fish too in that cloud,but it doesnt mean that it is the same.Maybe for the first one the fish is a trout and for the second one is a cod. The same thing happens when you read someone elses paper and you take their ideas,but you put it in your own words. Does that means that youre stealing? Yes,the purpose of any assignment is for students to learn and practice new skills. Its harder do to that when the other person has the same ideas,forcing you to come with something original. You deny yourself the opportunity to receive honest feedback on how to improve your skills and performance.Even so,I agree with using someone elses ideas if you also come with your own and mix them together.People are different,it is true,but if you think about it,we are almost 7 billion people on this earth.It is almost impossible to be original when it comes to it.The best example in this case is electricity and the person who discovered it. It is difficult to determine exactly who discovered electricity. In 1800 Alessandro Volta constructed the voltaic pile(an early electric battery)that produced a steady electric current. In 1831 electricity became viable for use in technology, when Michael Faraday created the electric dynamo(a crude power generator). This opened the door to Thomas Edison and his light bulb. The story doesnt end here.We have not mentioned Tesla yet. He was an important contributor to the birth of commercial electricity, he had many revolutionary developments in electromagnetism, and had competing patents with Marconi for the invention of radio. He is well known for his work with alternating current(AC), AC motors, and the polyphase distribution system. You can see the reasons that there can be some confusion as to who discovered electricity. It was known for

thousands of years, but when it came time to develop it commercially and scientifically, there were several great minds working on the problem . Another reason why students plagiarize is because they feel overwhelmed. Its difficult to juggle the demands of several classes and have a social life . Some think that the solution is to give up on their social life and dedicate entirely to school.Yes,you have great grades,all the professors like you,but all you do is learn and learn.Many of the students seem to forget that they learn so they can have a better life, not that they have a life so they can learn.Academic life is definitely important,because good grades get you success in life,but having no friends at all or no social life,not knowing what it means to dance all night because you stayed up late,working on a project for a class that you dont even need in your future career is important too.Personally, I think plagiarism is a great solution in these conditions.You dont have to work all night for a project that it wont be useful in your future.You dont plagiarize when youre in a competition or something like that.If you think about it,the only ones who are going to read that piece of paper are you and your professor.So,in this case,I think plagiarism is a good solution. Of course,Im not saying that students should do this with all their school projects,especially with those which are vital for their career.Basically,they need to work on balancing these things. Which things are important and which are not ? Is it wrong to borrow someone elses idea to recreate it in another form? It's become easy to answer yes because we place such a value on our intellectual property nowadays, but it's important to question whether or not that's really a good thing. We can't really own words, no matter how they're strung together and used. We borrow clichs and common phrases in our writing all the time and do it without attribution. Although it matters to no one, this is a direct form of plagiarism. As a conclusion,I think that in some situations,plagiarism should be accepted and people who plagiarize shouldnt be condemned because of it.