Essay on Cyber-plagiarism

Plagiarism is an increasing large issue on college campuses, a habit to most of the student. According to the article ‘’The Plagiarism Plague’’, the findings on the survey made to 50,000 students on more than 60 campuses was that 70 percent of the students admitted that they cheated. Half of the students surveyed admitted that one or more times made serious cheating on writing assignments, with 77 percent of the students surveyed said that cheating was not a serious issue.

The Internet and the World Wide Web contains plethora of information that anyone can be accessed on their fingertips. Unfortunately, this unprecedented access has resulted to easy copying of someone’s original work and passing it off as someone’s own called plagiarism. To counteract the exacerbating issues of plagiarism, many writers are settling down in using online plagiarism checkers to ensure no plagiarism has been committed.

Teachers in both middle and high school grew up learning information with books. The number of students who believe plagiarism is “serious cheating,” has declined five percent in about a decade. This might be the fact due to learning information from a book, it is a lot harder to copy word for word. It also was more time consuming since everything was written by hand. On the internet, all a student has to do is click and drag what they want to copy, hit ctrl + c to copy and ctrl + v to paste. These commands are the same for copying and pasting a Youtube link and for copying and pasting homework. This is similar to the statement made by a Rutgers senior, Sarah Brookover, “...it’s the same machine you’ve downloaded music with, possibly illegally, the same machine you streamed videos for free that showed on HBO last

New York Times journalist, Trip Gabriel, puts into perspective the use of digital technology in “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age,” from professors and students such as, Sarah Brookover, that have issues with plagiarism being taken lightly by her peers, since students are not “walking into a library, and not physically holding the article.” The discussion of plagiarism allows one to not only see the negative side of the digital age but how it’s been able to impact the younger generation who grew up with computers, tablets, and cell-phones. It is true that the use of these devices cause a certain ‘disconnect” when having to socialize in public, and everyone is looking towards their phones, but, these devices are the form in

Plagiarism cases can provide insight on the dire consequences that can occur if a student is caught plagiarizing within an academic setting. A former student of Rutgers University, Amanda Serpico, was accused by her professor of plagiarizing on her opinion paper in her argumentation class (Bailey, 2011). Amanda received credit for using citations in a majority of the paper and providing the sources in the reference section, but she did not properly cite at least three verbatim passages that she used within her work (Bailey, 2011). Amanda utilized Turnitin software to review her paper and to detect plagiarism before turning in the assignment for grading to her professor (Bailey, 2011). The plagiarism accusation resulted in Amanda receiving a failing grade on the paper, a failing grade in the course, and being denied admission to several graduate schools. (Bailey,

As one begins to grasp the concept of Schroth’s (2012) article The Plagiarism Plague, it is easy to identify the author’s dissatisfaction for plagiarism and the negative connotations he has for someone who is involved in this heinous offense. He initiates and summarizes his commentary with personal stories of how plagiarism has affected him. Schroth offers several solutions for the copyright issue that is upon us; he states, “the sanction for plagiarism must be at least an F on the paper, accompanied by a letter in the student's file to be consulted if it happens again, with the understanding that a second offense would mean expulsion.” Schroth was also sure to mention the collective approach necessary from all educators for his solution to be implemented. He believes the “policy will be effective only with leadership from the president and full cooperation from the faculty.” The writer goes on to explain how plagiarism has become an epidemic in this society and the effects of its prevalence thereof. Although plagiarism has become rampant in this society, it is still immoral and unethical. College students continue to plagiarize however, because they refuse to regard their education as a top priority and it has become culturally acceptable for people to falsify information without any serious penalties for their dishonesty.

Plagiarism cases can provide insight on the dire consequences that can occur if a student is caught copying within an academic setting. The professors accused Amanda Serpico, a former student of Rutgers University, of plagiarizing on her opinion paper in her argumentation class (Bailey, 2011). Amanda obtained partial credit for using citations in a majority of the writing and providing the sources in the reference section, but she did not properly cite at least three verbatim passages that she used within her work (Bailey, 2011). Amanda utilized Turnitin software to review her document and to detect plagiarism before turning in the paper for grading, but the plagiarism accusation still resulted in her receiving a failing grade on the assignment and in the course and denied admission to several graduate schools. (Bailey, 2011).

The turn of the 21st century brought about many issues concerning copyright and academic ownership, as rapidly growing technology and its capacity to spread information leave authors without the ability to create something “original.” Corynne McSherry covered one such battle of intellectual property. The power struggle involved a stellar professor, Heidi Weissmann, and her just-as-stellar mentor, Leonard Freeman. A series of events led to a disagreement as to the difference between a derivative work and plain old plagiarism. On the basis of the U.S. copyright law alone, it would have seemed that Weissman held the upper hand. However, neither of the two should be considered “right,” as the issue of –intellectual- property and who it belongs to should only apply to commercial situations, not academic ones where the only gain is the student’s intellect.

Students are heading back to campus. And when they finish writing that first paper of the year, a growing number will have to do something their parents never did: run their work through anti-plagiarism software.

In the professional field, academic dishonesty obstructs respect and fairness between all students, staff and faculty members that share a common goal. It shatters mutual trust that is shared and maintained between students and faculty members in an academic relationship. When students claim someone else work as their own, they are giving credit to themselves and not the original publisher. Also, it violates the standard academic integrity by delivering false information to fellow students and professors. The 2017-2018 Brandman Catalog makes a valid point that, “The University expects that students will conduct themselves in an honest and ethical manner and respect the intellectual work of others” (Brandman University, 2017). This shows how

Not making a good use of the internet and deciding to plagiarize can result in a failing grade. Students have been cheating all the way from High School without getting caught, and consequently they haven’t been lectured on plagiarism. Usually, teachers do not take the time to talk to their students about plagiarism. “many students claim not to have been confronted with the issue by parents or previous teachers except when personally caught plagiarizing” ( Petress). This lack of knowledge about plagiarism incites students to keep cheating. The only difference is that in college teachers have more advanced ways to grade papers. Technology has advanced. “...the same technology that makes it so easy for students to cheat is now aiding teachers in catching them” ( Hastings). College teachers are more strict regarding plagiarism than high school teachers; they can turn a plagiarized work into a zero. Students need to understand how useless it is to cheat. Everything is better than a zero, so students will get more benefit if they turn in a paper that

The writer, Todd Pettigrew wrote the article “All your profs wrong about plagiarism,” explains that plagiarism takes the form of counterfeiting, which means to fake instead of stealing. Many college students result to piracy rather than to add in the work because they are lazy or desperate to succeed and rarely pay attention to the causes of cheating. Students who view plagiarism as counterfeiting may see nothing wrong with the crime because they fake their work instead of stealing another person’s own words. The scholar knows the system of cheating, acknowledges the consequences, and understands the crime; however, continues the offense because they want to pass the class. The two main ways to cheat consist of going online and blatantly stealing

Students may have poor time-management skills or they may plan poorly for the time and effort required for research-based writing, and believe they have no choice but to plagia¬rize. Students may view the course, the assignment, the conventions of academic documenta¬tion, or the consequences of cheating as unimportant. Teachers may present students with assignments so generic or unparticularized that stu¬dents may believe they are justified in looking for canned responses. Instructors and institutions may fail to report cheating when it does occur, or may not enforce appropriate penalties. (http://www.wpacouncil.org). In The New Century Handbook, there are a few helpful ways described to avoid plagiarism. Step one is to take accurate, usable notes. Step two to record complete citation (bibliographic) information along with your notes. Step three is to determine when acknowledgment is needed. Step four; avoid copying and pasting information (text or graphics) from the Internet into your paper. Step

What I regard as cheating is considered OK by many American university students — one survey revealed that as many as 75% of the interviewed students had purchased essays, term papers or even their masters theses from other

Paraphrasing another individuals work without acknowledging the author or publishing company is also classified as plagiarism. This includes web sites. As the student is gaining information on a topic they are writing about without giving credit to the original author.