For The Love of Writing

by Shelbey Webb

At the young age of 10, as a 5^th grader, I recognized that I loved to write stories.  I couldn’t understand my classmates’ dread each day as we headed to our English class.  My teacher was what I would now label a “Grammar Nazi”.  I hated her red ink marks on my papers, but I paid attention to her comments and learned from my mistakes.  Her daily assignments were strengthening my enjoyment of writing.

I won’t say that I was a perfect child, but I certainly didn’t get into any trouble or cause any problems!!  In primary school I wouldn’t dream of doing something that would cause my clothespin to be moved from “green” to “red”.  I never spent a single minute in detention during middle school.  In high school, like always, I steered clear of anything that would even possibly call for a trip to the principal’s office or a phone call to my parents.

However, during my junior year of high school, my days of being the perfect child ended.  Yes, miss “too afraid to even think of being late to class” was in trouble for her first time.  There I was, sitting in the principal’s office, not for an award, or a congratulations, but because I had plagiarized.   Wait, I did what?  Plagiarism?  Exactly what is plagiarism and how can I be guilty of plagiarism if I don’t even know what it is?  Right?

Well, the first thing I did was cry.  I had made it almost all the way through my junior year of high school without getting into trouble.  Man, I just knew I was toast!  All of these awful thoughts were running through my head. Will I be suspended from school? Will I be able to get into college? Can I go to jail for plagiarism? My whole life is just ruined!! I had such high hopes for my writing career and I was afraid that I had just ended my career before I got out of high school.

Thankfully none of those things happened, but I did learn from that experience.  The first thing I learned was the definition of plagiarism.  According to Merriam-Webster….

Plagiarize:  to use the words or ideas of another person as if they were your own words or ideas.

See, I can copy the definition of plagiarize, word for word, as long as I give Merriam-Webster credit!!

So, exactly what did I plagiarize?  I honestly can’t remember.  It was a homework assignment.  I did that homework assignment just like all my other homework assignments.  But, by the strict definition of plagiarism, I had copied a phrase a little too literally and the teacher took notice.

If I plagiarize at any point in college I will most likely fail and potentially be removed from the school.  Now that I’m Almost an Author, the conceivable consequences of plagiarism are much greater. If someone were to take this post and call it their own, I would take great offense and possibly demand satisfaction!!

So maybe, just maybe, getting in trouble for plagiarism as a 16 year old high school student was a blessing in disguise, and here is why:

1. Nothing in life is just handed to you. You can’t just take someone else’s writing and call it your own; that’s not how life works. You have to sit, think, and write from your own thoughts. Don’t take the easy and wrong way out and steal from someone else.
2. Writing means more to me than I initially thought. I had always loved to write, but I realized how much I actually enjoyed it after feeling like it had been taken from me.
3. There are consequences in life, even if you aren’t aware that you did something wrong. Even though I didn’t know I was plagiarizing, I was still guilty.  The same goes for anything that anyone unintentionally does wrong.  Everyone makes mistakes and there are always consequences.
4. Never give up. I could have given up on writing. I was actually afraid that I would unintentionally plagiarize again and be even more trouble.  I kept trying, though, and overcame my fear.  Now I am blogging for a few sites and making connections with so many other writers around the world.

I could add more lessons that I’ve learned from mistakes that I’ve made, but then you might get the idea that I’ve made more mistakes than just plagiarizing in high school.

Shelby Webb:  

I am a college student chasing after God’s own heart. Happily an ice-cream addict and a lover of all puppies. Arkansas girl with a passion for writing.

I write for theodyssey.com on the University of Central Arkansas’ team.