How I Learned That Plagiarism Is Bad

I can usually be found speaking strongly against plagiarism. My friends often pull my leg on this topic. Funnily though, it was plagiarism that helped me learn why plagiarism is bad. Here's how:

The first time our school magazine's content management team invited entries from us, I was keen to see my name below one of the contributions. Without bothering much, I simply lifted a poem from somewhere and submitted it. The teacher who was selecting entries then called me to her room and asked, "Have you really written this?" "Yes," I said confidently. "Well, if so, I must say your vocabulary is pretty good for your age," she said, obviously sarcastically. It pricked.

"Okay so you can probably tell me the meaning of this word 'mound' that you have used here," she said, pointing at that word in the poem written in my hand-writing. "Er, actually I don't remember it right now," I said sheepishly. "That's not possible if you used it here yourself," she told me sternly. "My father helped me with it," I tried to reason further, adding to the stupidity. 

      "Do you realize, somebody must have put in effort to write this poem, which you so easily submitted as yours?" the teacher asked me rhetorically, "you may go now," she told me, nodding her head in utter disapproval.

The embarrassment moved me, and I understood why what I did was wrong. I promised myself that I would not repeat the mistake.

The next time entries were invited, I penned down one article and one poem in Hindi, and one article in English—all of which were published in that year's edition of the magazine.

That was when I discovered that I can be good at writing. Ever since, and at least when it comes to written expression, I have never needed to yield to plagiarism.

 Make mistakes to learn how to not make mistakes.