While some say that “nothing is said which has not been said before” (Terence)
or “about the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment” (Josh Billings) or even that “it’s not exactly plagiarism, it’s falling in love with good language and trying to imitate it” (Charles Kuralt), your professors may stand to disagree…
Keeping that in mind as you begin your fall semester, whether newbie 1L or a 3L on the final push, take a gander at this video – created by the University of Bergen Library in Norway – and learn exactly what happens when you choose to plagiarize.
Be sure to click the “cc” button to turn the English subtitles on – unless you happen to be fluent in Norwegian… Video quality is astounding, including plagiarism SWAT teams, giant robots destroying the city and a massive song and dance number staged in the library with a full marching band and cheer squad, so take a few minutes and enjoy this foreign film break – with or without popcorn.
And many thanks to Lyn Batty, one of our Reference Librarians, for passing along this video to me. Yes, I just avoided plagiarizing my plagiarism blog post idea.
~Ashley Moye~
