I was absent-mindedly clicking my way through the afternoon when I came across a video that made me sit up.
Katie Couric interviews a Harvard sophomore who denies she intentionally plagiarized another author's work. Katie asks piercing questions and 19-year-old Kaavya Viswanathan looks like she's a stiletto away from tears. I feel sorry for her but I'm also not buying her excuse.
I cringe, though, at the thought of how uncomfortable, humiliating, and painful it must be to sit through that interview. Specific points of similarities were cited by the Harvard Crimson and these similarities became the the stones that are being hurled upon Viswanathan's head.
There are sooo many stories coming out about people being busted for plagiarising or lying when they write things. I can’t believe people think they’re going to get away with it. It seems that people see how easy it is to steal content via the internet and that is where their thinking stops. They don’t realise modern technology also makes it much easier to catch someone who’s plagiarising.
That’s why I admit on my blog when something isn’t completely original.
True. And you'd think that people only steal when something is worth stealing. Sometimes, I wonder why some people steal.
When I was younger, I thought the only motivation was need. People steal because they need money. Apparently, however, need doesn't always enter the equation. My papa once caught a man trying to steal our door. Our door, can you imagine? He was unscrewing the door from the frame when papa walked into him. Now, why would he steal the door? Why didn't he just opt for something lighter and easier to run away with?
Because, as he eventually confessed, the door represented a challenge. Sick guy.