Plagiarism at its finest

Upon reflecting on the plagiarism assignment, I realized that I had a great time breaking the rules that typically apply to writing. I think that one of the most difficult aspects of this assignment was picking a topic to write about. I settled upon basing my paper on affirmative action because I have taken a few sociology and history classes that delved into this topic. I already had the background knowledge to write the paper and was also able to use a few sources from readings that I had to do for class. I thought this would be a really good idea because i wasn't sure if these would even be able to be found on the internet. As it turns out, they are searchable in google, but my partners had a difficult time figuring out which sources I actually used. A lot of the material and information about affirmative action is rather repetitive. I guess this was to my own advantage as my partners were able to distinguish certain passages of my paper that were not my own writing, but they also were not able to determine which source I actually plagiarized. My sources that I took from the internet, I knew would be easier to search. For these, I experimented by paraphrasing or changing around the word order so they wouldn't come up as quickly when typed into google. I think that overall I was able to hide my plagiarism fairly well, or at least successfully blended it into my writing. I think that this was a good experience overall. I realized that it is actually very easy to accidentally plagiarize by forgetting to cite a source or by paraphrasing but then never attributing the work to the source it is based upon. In the future, I think I will be forced to think more closely about what I am writing and make sure not to accidentally plagiarize. On one final note, I have also realized that I would not be a good TA or teacher because when I was trying to spot plagiarism in my group members' papers I had an extremely difficult time doing so. In one paper, I was not able to find a single source that was used. Perhaps it is better that I am the one writing my papers rather than reading them.