Plagiarism --Plagiarism is defined by the University Handbook as, "the act of representing the work of another as one's own and may consist of copying, paraphrasing, or otherwise using written or oral work of another without proper acknowledgment of the source or presenting oral or written material prepared by another as one's own"(p. 220).The University, as well as the Department of Sociology, takes plagiarism seriously. The minimum punishment of this offense is failure of the assignment or class. However, students could also get discharged from the University without the potential to graduate.Besides the above punishments, there are two reasons why I frown upon plagiarism.A) Ethical -- Philosophically, it is morally wrong to claim to do work that one has not done. One goal of the University is to encourage students to consider issue of ethics when making decisions. Thus, it is only fair that we uphold this goal by enforcing rules about plagiarism.B) Practical -- Another goal of the University is to facilitate the education of students. We would like to be proud of our graduates as they enter the world beyond the academy. Clearly, if our students cannot demonstrate strong writing skills, we fail at this task. In order for students to gain writing skills, they must practice. For this reason, students need to do their own work and not rely upon the work of others.