Plagiarism
In the article, I believe that Maureen Dowd plagiarized the article. My reason for this is that she should have been more careful when presenting ideas from other people. Like the author says, she looked a dumb journalist to just have copied and used another friend’s idea and suggestion without testing and confirming if that friend got from somewhere else. To safeguard her integrity, she should have developed a habit where she tests and asks people where they got their ideas. The story paints a bad picture of a person who has been respected for a long time. She has been in journalism for a long time. She has been respected for the quality and originality of ideas she has been passing through. She cannot blame anyone for the mistakes she has done. This is an example of plagiarizing another author’s work. This is the worst kind of plagiarism. It is even worst given the fact that the words were almost the same as the original author of these words.
Myself, I have never reached a point where I have almost plagiarized, leave alone plagiarizing. I understand the consequences of plagiarism. Not only do I fear the consequences of plagiarism, but also I hate the unethical aspect that is associated with it. Plagiarism is unethical and paints a picture of someone who is lazy waiting for someone else to do the research and jump on the findings and thus taking the credit. I however know of a friend who inadvertently plagiarized an article. She was doing a research on social networking and the role in communication and how social applications were replacing the traditional communication processes in companies. She should have avoided this by doing research of other people who have done similar research and acknowledging their work. She should have therefore indicated that she was advancing on some concepts that earlier researchers failed to work on.
Plagiarism can be avoided by always making sure that content which has been borrowed be correctly referenced and acknowledged. Use the appropriate reference style even in places where you have paraphrased the content. It is good and encouraged as a researcher to do a wide research to make sure that you know the researchers who have worked on the topic that you are working on and acknowledge them accordingly.
References
Gilmore, B. (2008). Plagiarism; Why it happens, how to prevent it. London: Heinemann.
