Plagiarism In Educating Rita

Bain’s reaction to the movie Educating Rita would have been positive because it demonstrates some of his points made in his book. One point Bain made was about stereotypes and how people can either believe that they are that stereotype or know that they are more than just a judgmental title put on them from others. In the beginning of the movie, Rita is already trying to change herself because her real name is Susan. Also, when she curses she says that educated people do not care, but when they are said around the masses, it makes a fuss. When Rita Professor Frank Bryant invited her to a party, she initially was going to go, but changed her mind because she thought she would not fit in with the rich, smart and higher up people at the party. She thought she was not wearing the right clothes or that she brought the right wine. Before she left for the party Denny said that she was not going to the pub with him, family and friends because she was too good for them now. When she left the party, she went to the pub and did not feel like she fit in. Rita was finding herself and growing out of her past self. Everyone was singing and merry, but Rita noticed that her mother stopped singing and was crying. Her mother said there had to be better songs to sing which Rita agreed with. This scene in the movie was saying that there was something better than what they were doing at the moment and Rita was reaching it by going back to school. She eventually realized she was not the stereotype she thought she was and came into her own being. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation was also present throughout the movie. Rita’s extrinsic motivations was to move up the ladder of life and not just be a lower class, twenty something hairstylist. Her intrinsic motivation was to learn everything that she possibly could. Another concept in the movie was embracing failure. Frank would criticize Rita’s essays and push her to dig deeper. Frank knew Rita was good enough to become educated, but for her to reach that point he would have to change her and get rid of her uniqueness. Rita did not care and told her if she was not doing something right he had to tell her so she could scrap the work and start over again to improve her work. She eventually pushed herself to really emerge herself in her work and present great essays to Frank. Rita gained confidence in herself by the end of the movie and at her summer school; she asked questions in a lecture class. She also spoke about her thoughts and opinions freely. People were taking her seriously and believing she was an educated woman. She had an attitude change and became more mature with her wardrobe and habits like giving up …show more content…
Plagiarism is an important concept because it is an act of cheating and considered a form of theft. Even working in a group setting and collaborating or helping someone or getting help from someone can become plagiarism. Society has an honor system and the breakdown of it leaves people fearful of their work being stolen, mistrustful of working with others because that person could claim the others work and/or ideas as theirs and vulnerable. The tools of copy and paste is so easy anyone can do it to falsify resumes or transcripts resulting in an individual qualifying for a position they are not worthy of. That person is stealing a position from someone that is qualified and probably worked hard to get to where they were in life. Plagiarism is highly wrong and bad, it is stealing someone’s intellectual property. An example of how plagiarism is a horrible thing to do is Adam Wheeler who is discussed in the book Conning Harvard. He is in prison and has to pay back the $45,000 in scholarships he falsely claimed from his immoral act. He was charged of identity fraud, larceny and other things. He plagiarized his SAT scores and transcripts to get into Harvard. Before that, he plagiarized to get into Bowdoin College. In reality, he was an average student from a normal school. He stretched his plagiarizing and lying skills too far. For the amount of work he spent on plagiarizing, he could have done actual honest