Plagirism- should we blame the internet?

Sometimes I think the advances in technology are making us run around in circles. It is almost as if we are getting ahead of ourselves and can't seem to control the spiralling. In the effort to make things more and more advanced and high-tech we are creating more problems than we can solve with the very technology. Cutting and pasting is the order of the day for some.

Plagiarism is one of those things. It used to be that finding information in a text book or encyclopedia or at the library was a good and useful thing. Then as technology made it possible to make more and more information available on the internet there had to be laws developed to protect this information and the writer's rights. But it is increasingly difficult to protect something that is published on the internet. Despite the 'fair use' clauses it is almost impossible to stop someone from repeating what they read on the internet, no matter the source.

The necessity for plagiarism detecting programmes became a reality. But even these programmes have their limits and must be used with care. To me just about everything is written in just about every way on the internet now, so that anything that is run through one of these programmes will come up as already quoted on the internet.

Not only universities , but newspapers and other print avenues are challenged by plagiarism and how to manage it. Students and writers are being encouraged to make sure and put everything that they are quoting in the proper quotation marks. What other solutions can there be?Where will this, like all other technology problem, end?

Read an article on plagiarism at Cheating has always been around