Plagiarism, what is it? Webster defines plagiarism as “the wrongful appropriation, theft, and publication of the language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions of another author and their representation as an original work.” Now some argue that to truly plagiarize someone else's work they must be a copycat author. However, this is not true from an academic point of view. Plagiarism covers much more, namely; using unauthorized notes during a test, copying another student's answers during a test, downloading information such as text, computer code, graphics, or graphics from the Internet and presenting them while you are working without acknowledgment, copying from others during a group work, and even contributing little or nothing to a group assignment and then claiming an equal share for a grade (something you see so often in some online programs). So, as you can see, plagiarism covers more than just the written words of another. Why do students plagiarize and why do I think plagiarism happens? Better yet, I would ask, did they actually intend to do it ...