Why Plagiarize When You Can Rip Off a Writer’s Thoughts?

I could frame this piece about plagiarism by starting with a little verse about a renowned professor who won his fame by appropriating the work of another:

Let no one else’s work evade your eyes

Remember why the good Lord made your eyes

So don’t shade your eyes

But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize…

Only be sure always to call it please ‘research.’

I might credit the author of those lines, the satirist and folk singer Tom Lehrer, but you’d likely think me less clever for merely quoting someone when I could have used an idea of my own.