Punishment of Plagiarism
The Incident:
Plagiarism: ironically means "kiddnapping"
Chapter 6, discusses the importance of ethics in a journalistic manner. Since about the 5th grade its been drilled into every young writers head that plagiarism is bad. The word is often associated with the word cheating, copying, other peoples words, stealing, and academic dishonesty. All negative works. In the text, it gives a short simple answer for the definition of the word."Plagiarism means taking material from other sources and not giving them credit for it (Howard and Mathews)."
The book gives two examples of plagiarism incidents that happened recently in the New York Times, CNN, and Times Magazine. The incidents involved two men by the names of Fareed Zakaria and Jayson Blair. Both journalists were review and fired and will most likely not have a future in writing.Although plagiarism happens to professional, what is the effect it has students?
ASU student: Raquel Velasco
According to an online news source, Raquel Velasco was said to have plagiarized several articles she wrote for the ASU’s student newspaper called the State Press. At the time, Velasco was also an intern for the
East Valley Tribune where it is said that she also plagiarized her work.I found it interesting because Velasco was compared to the incident in the book by Fareed Zakaria in the article. Was her act of plagiarism even comparable? or does it matter?
http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2012/09/asu-students-plagiarism-risks-more-than-her-own-career
Consequences:
After not only being publicly humiliated for her mistake, Raquel Velasco lost her internship at the State Press, The East Valley Tribune has removed all articles under her name from its website, and the State Press is reviewing all of her material to see what else she plagiarized.It is also also unsaid at the time of the article if she would still receive her degree.Losing trust and creditability for your writing is one of the worst situations that could happen as a PR professional. In my mind, this is why I feel the word plagiarism has been grained into our heads since we were 12 year old and why it has such a negative connotation.
As senior journalism student, I feel like it was a poor mistake on her fault. On the other hand, on the amount of media and press this receive it definitely ruined her career as a journalist. Being in my senior year of my undergrad as well, I would be devastated if the career i choose was over before it even started!! Although, as a senior journalist student she should have known better.
As the article states, Velasco repeatedly plagiarized other peoples work.
In my opinion, I think the punishment was fair because she committed the crime of plagiarize repeatedly! She knew what she was doing and got caught in someone elses words!
I wonder if the outcome of her story would be different if it was told from her point of view?
Maybe she would have got away with it?
References:
DOMINGUEZ, ANDRES. "ASU Student's Plagiarism Risks More than Her Own Career." ArizonaDaily Wildcat. Daily Wild Cat, 11 Sept. 2012. Web. 02 Oct. 2013.
Howard, Carole, and Wilma Mathews. On Deadline: Managing Media Relations. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 1985. Print. 2013.
Damn Valaco needs to get it together, did she plan on writing anything herself? If not, she chose a bad field to go into. I agree with you Sandra the thought of being in one of these situations is terrifying. A career being over before it even began. Being in the middle of a plagiarism scandal is a fast way of loosing all credibility, which in this field is EVERYTHING! We need to have the public's trust, and that will be shattered and hard to regain if caught being unethical. Which is why it is so crucial to cover all bases when posting other's material.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad someone agrees with me! From my research I couldn't find much of a response from her. She clearly knew what she was doing was wrong was it would be interesting to hear her excuse.
DeleteAlthough i did learn that she was dismissed from school :/ Yikes!
DeleteCut and Paste. Creating fluid, readable thoughts often takes nothing more than a few clicks of the mouse. Sample from a few printed works, throwing in a few transitions and BAM–paper complete. The digital age makes plagiarism easy. The stories of journalists plagiarizing seem to be more common than before, but are it just because it is easier to catch them now? Do the same number of people borrow from other writers, but Google makes it easy to catch the perpetrators red-handed? I think everyone has used the old cut and paste trick to beef up their papers, some are just better at disguising it. Ultimately, with the immense reservoir of media sources available demonstrating a completely original thought seems novel. I think plagiarism comes down to the Golden Rule: Don’t steal other’s work unless you want your work stolen as well.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point Angel! I think you are very right in saying that the digital age makes plagiarism easy and also makes it easy catch. The fact that we all have easy accuses to everything through the internet makes it so simple to just copy and paste and no one knows unless they take the time to go back and check the sources. That's why i think it would be interesting to hear her response.
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