Intro and Chapter 1

The introduction to the book was very interesting. I'm glad that it
went into detail about the different types of people who were
interviewed and studied. The the thing that I identified with the most
was when she talked about the college students lives. It really mad me
reflect on all of the pressure that was on me to go to college and the
years of training and preparation to do so. Another thing that I was
able to relate to was inter textual activity. This is because my
friends and I are constantly referring to a quote that was said on
television or in a movie. However, we hardly ever quote from an
"academic text" and if we do, we use it very carefully ( I still do
not know why). I agree that when students are caught plagiarizing,
though there should be consequences. I also believe there should be
some type of look into why they did it( circumstances). It was a
little strange that they interviewed so many people but I guess they
had to in order to get a variety of answers. The interviewers asked
students about the goals for college as well as social life,
intellectuality, and circumstantial plagiarism they knew or had heard
about. All of these elements play a key part into understanding
plagiarism from an average college students perspective. I did not care
about what kind of school the interviews where done at yet alone what
school it was, but I'm sure it is to others.
Whenever I thought about plagiarism i never questioned the persons
morality. It was shocking to hear that a few people believe that
people who plagiarize are "immoral" although I'm assuming they are from
an older generation. The definitions of plagiarism vary which makes it
difficult to put an exact and true understanding of it, hence the
extensive research Blum has done on it. When she began to give all of
the examples of people who were caught plagiarizing in well known
professional businesses, I was astounded. Almost everyday I encounter
a writing or saying that has a parallel structure to something that
has been said before. Another shocking revelation that was revealed
was that professors plagiarize more than students. It never crossed my
mind that professors would plagiarize because I always thought of them
as being upholders of the rules. My mouth nearly dropped when they
found over 70,000 cases of possible plagiarism through eBlast. What was
even more ridiculous was that those caught are hardly ever prosecuted
and are usually ignored. It really opened my eyes about plagiarism and
i am eager to read more about it.