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Plagiarism : Is Not Simple?

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There is cause for discussion when it comes to originality. As a college student I find myself struggling with the the concept of being original. My whole academic career prior to college I was told to strive for originality, but now that I am attending a university I have learned that being original is not simple, but instead a very complex process. Questions such as: what is originality? How does someone achieve pure originality? Can someone actually be truly original? may come to mind when discussing the topic. Another idea that seems to go hand in hand with the discussion of originality is the discussion of plagiarism. How is plagiarism defined? Is plagiarism unavoidable? I have come to find out that what I have learned about plagiarism in my thirteen years of schooling prior to College actually contrasts what I have learned in one semester at the university I am attending. Originality is defined on page 799 in the book Writing About Writing as being, “the condition of being singular, unique, and entirely made up or invented, as opposed to imitative or derivative.” What I take from this definition is that in order to be truly original there needs to be noone other than myself to have or ever had have the ideas that I posses. That is nearly, if not completely, impossible. When I am given a writing assignment for my current English 101 class I always have reading to do in preparation for that writing. When I am reading I am highlighting specific ideas of the author’s

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