No Point In Copying

“Copying is bad, it’s a bad sign of character!”  My third grade teacher would constantly remind us whenever she would assign a writing assignment or research paper.  Her saying was annoying, but it did get the point across.  The article, “They Said It So Much Better. Shouldn’t I Use Their Words?” makes a valid point. Sometimes when you are lost for words, and you read something from the textbook that basically says everything you yourself couldn’t form into a sentence, you’re just like, “I couldn’t have said it any better than they already did.”  In those moments you have to take a step back and realize that if you copy that sentence and get caught, you will forever be known as the plagiarizer, and no professor will ever trust you again.  It’s the sad fact of life.  Instead you could paraphrase the sentence like the article, “What Is a Paraphrase, Anyway?” suggests, but just be careful because even then, paraphrasing is a little iffy.  Another thing to make sure of, in an essay you don’t want it to consist of entirely paraphrased sentences, you want your own writing in there and only paraphrase or put a direct quote when necessary, like when trying to provide evidence for a topic.  If you do use a direct quote, be sure to cite where exactly you found it and give the original author credit they deserve.  Don’t plagiarize, because the chances of being caught are a lot higher than not being caught and you don’t want to get expelled from school for copying because that’s just sad and embarrassing…just saying.