There are a few major reasons why one should avoid plagiarism.
Plagiarism is stealing
The biggest reason is that it's stealing someone elses work and is a federal offense. Going to jail or getting sued as a college student is not the way you want to start your life at such a young age.
You don't learn anything
Through plagiarism, you're not gaining anything for the class you're paying for! When you just copy and paste something off the Internet for a class assignment, you're cheating the class and not learning anything. There's a lot of thought and brainstorming that goes into the writing process, and this can help you establish your ideas and who you are (since as young people, will all really don't know who we are yet). This helps us establish opinions and figure out the world around us. College classes aren't cheap and you want to get the most out of them!
You lose an incredible amount of credibility
"Citing expert sources helps build both our credibility and the persuasiveness of our arguments, but we do have to let readers know where we found those words, ideas, and information during our research." (279) However, not giving credit to the original authors of such ideas can result in a lack of trust between the reader and writer. When you lose that trust the first time, you've hurt your reputation as a writer for a very long time, maybe even for the rest of your life.
Plagiarism can get you into trouble
As mentioned above, plagiarism is a federal crime and the owners of the copyrighted material could sue you for stealing their work. There are a lot of bad ways your life could go for breaking a federal law and once you've established yourself as a criminal, it follows you for the rest of your life.
Harris, Muriel. Prentice Hall Reference Guide with MLA Updates. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
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