Newspaper Response

NEWSPAPER RESPONSE

Wyatt Whyte

History of western Civilization 40s

Larry Patrick

2018-02-15

Many institutions today are receiving more and more plagiarized work. Today around the world plagiarizing is plaguing universities everywhere, let that be in Canada, Ukraine, Korea etc. Plagiarizing is the act of stealing someone else’s work and passing it off as one’s own. It does note even have to be outright, subtle plagiarism is just as bad.  Plagiarizing is a huge problem not only for universities, but it seems to be politically too as in the case for Ralph Klein.

The article explains how the Alberta premier is being accused of plagiarism for an essay he wrote in university. It talks about how he didn’t properly site his sources for his essay and that most of his essay was even copy and pasted. It explains how many people are also concerned with the statements the education minister, Lyle Oberg, made. Consequentially it also talks about how an examination of his paper would show you that he copied many of his paragraphs from websites word for word; this begs the question what the professor was thinking when he marked Klein, and why didn’t Klein get punished for plagiarism. I think people are right to question how he managed to get away with plagiarism and that he should have some sort of consequences. I also wonder how an education minister thinks that plagiarism is fine and that its not a big deal. Additionally, I also would like to know how his professor didn’t realise he was plagiarising, considering on examination the paper clearly has copy and pasted paragraphs from known websites. In most cases with plagiarism, a student found guilty can face punishments ranging from failure of the class, expulsion, zero for that specific assignment and if the plagiarist copies incur revenue of over two thousand five hundred a fine of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in some cases. Considering those punishments, I think that if he hasn’t plagiarised before he should just get a zero on the essay. I do not think that he is being treated like any other student. I think he is getting off easy because he is the premier and that if he was a normal student he would have more repercussions.

In the end Plagiarizing is a plague. It affects everyone and not just the average joe; It is an extremely lazy and unimaginative way to do things. Not only does it effect more than just universities, it affects us as a species, stagnating us in a way. It’s a huge problem that we must address as even more people think they can get away with including people like Klein, a premier, who is someone how should do things right. Concluding, I believe plagiarizing should be a serious offence and that it shouldn’t be taken too lightly no matter who you are.