R.R. Reno on why plagiarism is wrong in higher education:
When I assign a paper, I’m asking my students to analyze material and tell me what they think. Plagiarism amounts to avoiding the assignment, and turning in something that appears to be one’s own analysis. The transgression—dishonesty—is not complicated, and it has nothing to do with theories about the possibility or impossibility of originality.
Plagiarism is a problem in higher education, because it involves students (and professors, who also plagiarize) who lie. They lie about what they know. They lie about what they have considered and thought about. They lie about their competence. Their success contributes to creating a culture of impostors.
If this is true for the classroom, how much more troubling is it to see plagiarism in the pulpit?
