Critique Of - Applying Ethical Theories: Interpreting and Responding to Student Plagiarism, Journal of Business Ethics

Desjardins, J. (2009). An introduction to Business Ethics (3rd Ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher education. pp. 26~41.

In today’s era of education, plagiarism is a global issue; each academic institution is facing heavy issue. Plagiarism is derived from the Latin word “predatory”, which means kidnapping or theft. "Plagiarism, broadly defined, encompasses presenting other people’s ideas as your own without clearly giving

Students are invited to think about and decide if there were no rules for conduct of ethical research and no software to detect plagiarism, would it matter? With this in mind, a discussion is required to explain why it would matter or why it would not matter.

As a student at Robert Kennedy College, and therefore as part of an academic community where high standards of morality are paramount, you are expected to behave honourably. Plagiarism, which is cheating under another name, wastes the time of faculty members, leads to the ignominy of being accused of unfair practice, and – above all – diminishes you as a human being.

Plagiarism is increasingly becoming a more significant issue in colleges nowadays. It destroys creative thinking of a person and needs to be tackled with conscious efforts from colleges and students. Plagiarism is a fraudulent act in which you use another person’s work and fail to give a reference. It is ethically wrong, and breaks the academic code of conduct, affecting the student’s reputation and performance. In colleges, plagiarism can occur because students fear to fail or due to poor time management, thus, they are unable to conduct research efficiently.

It is an epidemic that has spread across academia. It is a serious problem that can be cured if the appropriate procedures are in place in order to prevent it. The disease has a name. It is referred to as “Plagiarism” and applies to academic integrity standards including the policies at Monroe Community College (MCC). Monroe Community College defines Plagiarism as, “offering the work of someone else as one’s own. The language or ideas thus taken from another person or source may range from isolated formulas, sentences, or paragraphs, speeches, or the writings of other students” (Monroecc.edu). The purpose of this paper is to reveal how Monroe Community College deals with the issue of academic integrity

Students are typically assigned tasks and evaluated based on their understanding of the concepts that they are taught in class. Therefore, if a student plagiarizes other people’s work and presents it as his or her own, an instructor will be misled into evaluating the work of the original author rather than the actual student. This undermines the quality and meaningfulness of the learning process since students will not be evaluated properly (Hall 181). Moreover, students who plagiarize others’ work exert unfair competition unto students who are diligent and honest (181). It may be very disheartening for students who submit their own work to get lower scores than others who are dishonest. In order to ensure that learning occurs under fair conditions, it is important for all students to observe standard rules of academic

The causes of plagiarism include insufficient languages abilities, an absence of talents for utilizing data, newness to western scholarly societies and burden to attain education marks. It has been evaluated from different approaches that student’s understandings of plagiarism are provided through academic integrity. In fact, students did not

There are many decisions, both positive and negative that can be made by an instructor, when faced with the dilemma of plagiarism. As an educator, it is our job to teach and hopefully reach the decision making process that might have led them to do this and enhance their own feelings about their ability to do the right thing. The approach an instructor takes can make a strong, proficient and competent professional or it can make a bitter, resentful person who will leave school with a disheartened spirit and failure complex, never to return.

What is plagiarism? There is no one definition that all teachers believe in. During this paper, I will explore some of the possible answers to this question. Once the teacher has the definition that is used by their school and what they believe it means there is a process that needs to be completed in order to have the students to not commit this error in their judgment. There are many steps that can be taken between the teacher and student so that they all know what needs to be done. Before stopping this error, the student needs to understand why they are copying others works and that it is not ethically for them to do this. So, once we find out why the students plagiarize there are some steps that can be taken by both the teacher

Plagiarism has become a major issue among university students around the world. Academic misconduct has been a concern to those teaching at the universities. Hence, to prevent this from occurring the educational bodies have implemented measures to avoid plagiarism. Presently, the newly recruited students are informed of the consequences of plagiarism and that stern action is in place (Ashworth, Bannister, & Thorne,1997,p.1). However, plagiarism can be divided into two parts: deliberate and inadvertent. Presented here are the reasons why student plagiarism is considered quite high at western universities, even though many of the university students do not mean to cheat. There are three reasons as follows: (1) lack of clear understanding about the concept; (2) lack of knowledge about citation and referencing skills; and (3) poor time management. The first focus is on definitions of plagiarism and the differences between two types of plagiarism, reasons for inadvertent plagiarism, and lastly why international students have became the most plagiarising students in western universities.

After reading that 52 percent of students admit to have copied someone else's words without citation in “Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age”  by Lea Calvert Evering and Gary Moorman. I have come to realize that plagiarism is a major problem and policies should be endorsed in a more positive way. because it is a form of  academic dishonesty, students do not learn by cheating and it is not fair for students who actually follow the rules..

Plagiarism is the process of taking some one else work or ideas and showing it as their own works (Oxford Dictionaries). The purpose of this study is to understand 6 different ethical reasons used by student to overcome with plagiarism and with help of these ethical reason, faculties can bring a solution to stop or prevent plagiarism. Where as unethical behavior can also lead to worries in school or colleges, so there is need to correct it so that it has positive impact on organizational ethics. Although, after reading this journal article, it was clearly seen that mostly used ethical reasons are Deontology, Situational Ethics and Machiavellianism to overcome with the problem of Plagiarism (Ashworth and Bannister, 1997).

According to our readings, "the type of plagiarism deliberate or unintentional has an impact upon the perception of the offence for both faculty and students" (Academic Integrity 2011). This is an important distinction to some people, although the act of plagiarism remains unacceptable no matter why it is done.

In their article “Applying Ethical Theories: Interpreting and Responding to Student Plagiarism” Neil Granitz and Dana Loewy correlate students’ reasoning when justifying plagiarism to different theories of ethics. There are two primary aims of this study: 1. to categorise students cheating based on the ethical reasons they invoke when defending their act, 2. to develop a specific response for each type of plagiarism in order to lead tutor approaches in dealing with this issue. Furthermore, the article states that students with unethical behaviour during the school years are more likely to engage in lack of integrity at the workplace.