The Wrongs of Plagiarism: Ten Quick Arguments

This article offers ten arguments to demonstrate why student plagiarism is unethical. In sum, plagiarism may be theft; involve deception that treats professors as a mere means; violate the trust upon which the professor-student relationship depends; be unfair to other students in more than one way; diminish the student's education; indulge vices such as indolence and cowardice; foreclose access to the internal goods of the discipline; diminish the value of a university degree; undercut creative self-expression and acceptance of epistemic limitations; and undermine the vital interpersonal component of higher education. Plagiarism warrants severe penalties that effectively combat the student's presumptive competitive strategy for individual success.