Summary of “Plagiarism? Are You Kidding?”

“Plagiarism? Are You Kidding?” is a video of a conversation between two people talking about the importance of citing source. And the main issues they talk about are the reasons and the correct ways to using intellectual properties. The boy complains that he is required to use all those texts in his paper and he asserts the only reason is that his professor wants him to show everything. However, the girl calms him down by explaining that using texts can show his ideas are shared by other people. If more people agree with his ideas, the stronger his argument is. And she adds that paraphrasing can reflect that he is a well reader, a more intellectual person who is aware of the content. Then the boy indicates that it is waste of time to cite source and it is not easy to paraphrase every sentence due to changing words and grammar points. And the girl compares the rules of paraphrasing to football rules to help him understanding and she points out that the boy sometime can give the main idea instead of copying all sentences. Later, the boy implies that the paraphrasing just follows certain rules. The girl partly acknowledges his viewpoint because sometimes people cite too much source; nevertheless, since writers can not always predict readers’ expects, it is hard for them to cite important information. Finally, the boy wonders if citing has relationship with plagiarism. And the girl mentions they can be confusing but not same. She supports her opinion by listing four positive points of citing such as strengthening arguments, providing more information, demonstrating well read and acknowledging source belongs to some else.

According to the video, there are many advantages of citing source. Therefore, in my perspective, if we can learn and know use other’s intellectual properties in a correct way, people will not only understand our ideas better but also share more their knowledge.