According to Webster’s dictionary, plagiarism is defined as the “appropriation or imitation of the language, ideas, or thoughts of another, and representation of them as one’s original work.” In fact, every semester I deal with cases of blatant plagiarism involving one or more of our graduate students. I've read several articles on the problems with plagiarism in academic programs. The problem is rampant throughout higher education. Word processing software has become an Internet cut and paste tool. When you look for references for your papers my guess is that 95% of what you use to gather your facts comes from the Internet; either a PDF file or web page. You read a paragraph and think "Hmmm, I couldn't have said it any better!" And,
