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Amanda Fernandez Dr. Mason English 1101H October 15, 2013 Generation Plagiarism Arguments Plagiarism is theft no matter what. Even when used in a different context, copying someone elses work word for word is still stealing. However, it is argued that Hegemann did not use what she lifted from Strobo in a different context, as both books are about Berlins youth in the club scene. Hegemann did not make an attempt to acknowledge that she had lifted passages from anothers work until blogger Deef Pirmasens pointed out the plagiarism to the public. Her claims of entering into a dialogue with the author would seem more acceptable had she mentioned, before Pirmasens, that she had indeed copied other writers. She had no intentions of mentioning that she had help making her way to fame. The fact of the matter is that Hegemann made money while the author she plagiarized made nothing from her gains. This leads to the argument that plagiarism should be punished, not rewarded. In a similar case, Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan was accused of plagiarism. Instead of trying to defend what had happened and also try to say the work was all her own, Viswanathan apologized, openly explained herself, and began doing what was necessary to fix the problem. Viswanathan did not get away from the problem as easily. Her apology was not accepted by the publisher of the books she plagiarized. She had received movie deals, but they were revoked after she was accused of plagiarism. Hegemann became successful even after she was accused of plagiarism. If students can get away with plagiarism, no matter the excuse, more students will think it is O.K. If professors cracked down on students, there would be more original work.

Students should be taught how to read sources to create their own original arguments when they are in middle and high school. The education they receive before college does not prepare them intellectually for it. If students receive that education, they will not be drawn to the idea of plagiarizing. The Common Core Standards, based on the College and Career Readiness Standards, reminds us of the importance of independent reading of grade-level calibrated text (Farrel). This means that it highlights the importance of students reading, on their own time, texts at a level that they should be reading at whatever grade-level they are in. If they learn to continue reading at a higher level, they will have ideas of how they should write. It is easy to find a lot of information from many different sources online. Blogger Jonathan Hordle talks about a new generation of people, those who have grown up with copy and paste and call it mixing. Hegemann is simply following a line of argument that is gaining momentum at the moment when everything is available free online, what is the meaning of copyright? Though Hordle does not support plagiarism itself, he does think it is time for a renegotiation of what it is. This case might hit home with older generations, but as technology makes information more readily available, those plagiarism lines for the next generations are becoming more and more blurred.