原文作者：赵越

　　给你一些作业题目，并允许你访问“万能”的网络，只要拷贝粘贴，任何问题都能搞定。但你可知道这样的行为其实也是一种剽窃吗？在信息技术发达的今天，剽窃和作弊变得越来越容易，这些现象也越来越普遍，在中学生和大学生中间尤为严重。可剽窃意识不够也好，原创意识淡化也罢，关键是，不经自己思考、直接照搬现成信息的行为不是自欺欺人吗？当有一天，你发现自己失去了创造的能力，那可就真的后悔也来不及了。
 　　exhibit a： a freshman at rhode island college copied and pasted material from a web site into his research paper about homelessness. he didn't think he needed to credit2） the source because the site didn't list an author.
 　　exhibit b： middle school students from pennsylvania told the authors of a study on cheating that the internet was "magic" because it provided almost any information they wanted. "once i forgot to do my homework，" said one student. "and i went [online] and just copied the paper in my handwriting， and [the teacher] never knew."
 　　事例1：罗德岛学院的一位大一学生在撰写有关“无家可归现象”的研究论文时，从某个网站复制粘贴了一些素材作为自己论文的一部分。wWW.11665.coM他觉得自己不必注明那些素材的出处，因为那个网站也没有署上作者的姓名。
 　　事例2：在做一个有关作弊的研究时，其作者从来自宾夕法尼亚州的中学生口中得知：网络很“神奇”，因为它几乎可以提供他们想要的任何信息。“有一次，我忘了写作业，”一名学生说，“于是我就去[上网]把网上的一篇论文动手抄了下来，而老师完全没有发现。”[论文网]
 　　the problem with both examples is that copying someone else's words—whether from a book， a tv show， or the internet—without attribution3） is plagiarism. but many students， accustomed4） to the free flow of information online， don't realize that copying from the web is a serious misdeed. in fact， it can lead to suspension5）， expulsion6）， or a permanent mark on your academic record.
 　　donald l. mccabe is a professor at rutgers university in new jersey. in his surveys of college students， 40 percent admitted to plagiarizing a few sentences in written assignments. some 61 percent admitted to cheating on assignments or exams. in another survey， more than half of students in grades 7 to 12 admitted to some form of cheating involving the web. about one third said that they didn't consider downloading a paper from the internet to be a serious offense.
 　　alarmed at the rise of digital cheating， many educators have responded by using services like turnitin.com. this site and others allow teachers to check students' work for plagiarism against a database of millions of term papers.
 　　以上两个例子的问题都在于：无论是从书本上、电视节目中还是网络上，抄袭了他人的词句又不标明出处即是剽窃。然而，很多学生对网络上自由流动的信息习以为常，并没有意识到从网上拷贝东西是一种后果严重的错误行为。事实上，这种行为可能会导致暂被停学或被开除的后果，或者会在你的学业履历中留下永久的污点。
 　　唐纳德·l·麦凯布是新泽西州罗格斯大学的教授。在他对大学生所做的调查中，有40%的学生都承认他们在做书面作业时从别处抄袭过一些句子。有61%的学生承认自己在做作业或考试中作过弊。在另一项调查中，7～12年级的学生当中有超过半数的人承认自己有过某种与网络相关的作弊行为。大约有三分之一的学生坦言，他们不认为从网上下载论文是多么严重的过错。
 　　由于网络抄袭事件不断增多，许多老师感到担忧，他们已经开始使用诸如turnitin.com这样的网站作为应对手段。该网站和其他此类网站都拥有包含数百万篇学期论文的数据库，能让老师们检测出学生的作业中是否有抄袭现象。

　　author！ author！ 作者！作者！
　　it may also be redefining how students， who are used to music-file-sharing and wikipedia， understand the concept of authorship.
 　　"we have a whole generation of students who've grown up with information that just seems to be hanging out there in cyberspace and doesn't see

m to have an author，" says teresa fishman， the director of the center for academic integrity at clemson university in south carolina. "it's possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take."
 　　sarah brookover， a senior at rutgers， has observed many of her classmates copying and pasting from the web. when you do research on the internet， she says， "you're not walking into a library， you're not physically holding the article." you can forget that the ideas aren't yours. online， she says， "everything can 'belong' to you really easily."
 　　针对那些习惯使用网上的音乐共享资源和维基百科网站的学生，我们也许需要重新界定他们是如何理解“作者”这一概念的。
　　“整个这一代的学生在各种信息的包围中长大，这些信息就那样挂在网上，似乎并没有作者，很可能让人认为这些信息就是挂在网上供任何人拿来用的。”南卡罗来纳州克莱姆森大学学术诚信中心的负责人特蕾莎·菲什曼说。
 　　莎拉·布鲁克奥弗是罗格斯大学的大四学生，她注意到，她的很多同学都会从网上复制粘贴一些信息。当你上网做研究时，她说，“你并不是去了图书馆，也不是真的用手拿着那篇文章在读。”你会忘记那些观点并不是你自己的。在网上，她说，“你很容易就把任何信息都当成是‘属于’你的。”
 　　is originality dead？ 原创已死？
　　last year， helene hegemann tested the notion that it's ok to blend all of this free-floating information into a creative work. the teen's best-selling novel about young people in germany's capital， berlin， was found to include passages lifted from other authors. hegemann didn't apologize. instead， she declared： "there's no such thing as originality anyway."
 　　hogwash7）， says sarah wilensky. while a student at indiana university， wilensky took aim at hegemann in a column in her school newspaper headlined "generation plagiarism". relaxing plagiarism standards， she wrote， "does not foster8） creativity； it fosters laziness" .
 　　donald j. dudley， who oversees the discipline office at the university of california， davis， agrees. of the 196 plagiarism cases referred to his office in 2009， most involved students who intentionally copied.
 　　to address the problem， some colleges are requiring students to complete online tutorials about plagiarism. at one school， such tutorials cut plagiarism cases by two thirds. meanwhile， public schools around the country are making students sign technology agreements9） acknowledging the seriousness of copying and pasting.
 　　but no method works like understanding the value of research. "people who plagiarize are cheating themselves，" one student wrote on a new york times blog. "one day， they'll be asked to create something new， something that doesn't already have a wikipedia page， and they won't be able to."
 　　有观点认为，把网络上那些自由流动的信息全部整合成一部富有创造性的作品无可厚非。去年，海伦妮·黑格曼就把这种观点付诸了实践。这个十几岁的孩子撰写了一本关于德国首都柏林的年轻人的畅销小说，人们发现她书中有些章节是从其他作家那里抄袭来的。黑格曼并没有道歉。相反，她宣称：“反正原创性这种东西根本就不存在。”
 　　莎拉·威伦斯基称，黑格曼的话完全是一派胡言。在印第安纳大学读书时，威伦斯基就曾为校报写过一篇题为“新生代的剽窃现象”的专栏文章来抨击黑格曼。她当时这样写道，如果将界定作弊的标准放宽，“不但不会激发创造力，反而会助长懒惰因子”。
 　　加州大学戴维斯分校教导处的负责人唐纳德·j·达德利对威伦斯基的观点表示赞同。在2009年提交到他那里的196起作弊事件中，大部分都是学生有意进行抄袭的。
　　为解决这种问题，一些大学要求学生必须修完关于抄袭行为的在线辅导课。在某所学校，这种辅导课使抄袭事件减少了三分之二。与此同时，全美各地的公立学校都要求学生在“技术使用许可协议”上签字，协议中明确了拷贝粘贴的严重性。
 　　然而，没有哪种方法能比认识到研究的价值所在更奏效。“作弊的人是在自欺欺人，”一位学生曾在《纽约时报》的博客上这样写道，“总有一天，有人会要求他们创造出

一些新的东西，一些维基百科的网页还没有涉及的内容，而他们将无能为力。”