Facile comparisons between college term papers and published books need to quit being quite so facile. They may continue as legitimate comparisons, just not in facile-mode. When a college student finds some sparkling prose online, and plonks it down in the middle of his otherwise tepid paper, making the stolen portion flash like a strobe light at the instructor, everybody knows that this is simple intellectual theft, clumsily done. That kind of straight across plagiarism can happen with books also, and does, with depressing regularity.
Douglas Wilson
Tagged “intellectual theft”
“computers have made it easier to get into all kinds of sin, including the sin of plagiarism, which is intellectual theft”
With regard to the eighth command, it would be nice to say that this is a Christian college, and that we have consequently never had any problem whatever with stolen work. When you have a lot of work to turn in, and the pressure is high, it is easy to start making excuses to yourself, or to shove the noisy part of your conscience into a closet. And computers have made it easier to get into all kinds of sin, including the sin of plagiarism, which is intellectual theft.
Douglas Wilson