Joe M.

Plagiarism is a serious transgression for writers for the same reason joke theft is a cardinal sin for comedians - creative theft hurts. Creative theft is so hated because it steals the fruits of our labor even more funadmentally than just office politiking or project credit-taking. It erases the identity of the original author (of the joke, insight, analysis, etc) and creates in its place a lie - that the perpetrator of the theft is the true source, and deserves the accolades, finacial and social, associated with it.