Electronic Policing

Almost every student has been there: staring at his/her computer trying to get an assignment done when they have twenty other obligations swinging over his/her head. Students are trying to find the fastest and easiest way to get the assignment completed. Many students will plagiarize intentionally or unintentionally at some point of their educational career. Plagiarism is the act of taking someone else’s work or ideas then calling that work their own. There is no acknowledgement being given to the original author. In Trip Gabriel’s “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age,” the internet has created new challenges for students being able to give credit to ideas and information. Often, Students do not understand that information on

Due to the Internet academic plagiarism has become the most common and serious problem in school of all levels. “In Roget’s Thesaurus plagiarism comes under theft, and there’s little sympathy for those accused of stealing other people’s work and presenting it as their own” (Revell, 2006). Plagiarism is on the rise in academia due to two main reasons. One of the reasons is because students do not know how to cite sources and references properly, or students do not fully understand what constitutes plagiarism. In addition, many students do not know they can also plagiarize against themselves. Self-plagiarism or double dipping occurs when students use the same paper that he or she had submitted for another class without the proper citation of the original work (University of Phoenix, 2009). Therefore, when a student plagiarizes his or her paper it is equivalent to committing theft.

The paper responds to this proposition with a thesis that understanding the ethical reasoning provided by students in defending plagiarism is crucial in preventing it in student populations. The reasons can provide the basis for specific action-orientated recommendations to reduce plagiarism and to design programs to encourage originality and

plagiarism causes and effects the education in today’s world. It also deals with how to prevent and detect plagiarism.

Plagiarism is “the presentation of work for credit that is not [a writer’s] own” (Johanson, 2010, p. 267). Any information obtained by a writer from another source requires a citation in the text; therefore, a writer must provide a reference when paraphrasing or quoting another author’s material (APA, 2010). The use electronic resources or software to prevent unintentional plagiarism, educating students on how to cite and reference material in academic writing appropriately, and providing information to students about the consequences of plagiarizing.

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.

Good scholarship practice can be referred to as a formal study which involves academic learning and achievement. It involves acknowledging where information used to support ideas in a particular context is gotten and citing the sources (Locke and Latham, 2009). Britag and Mahmud (2009) pointed out that different strategies which include the use of electronic software tools such as turnitin have been derived for detecting plagiarism with the intent of allowing students’ take responsibility of their learning and also work hand in hand with their tutors in the drafting stages of their assignments. According to Britag and Mahmud (2009) manual detection of plagiarism is difficult because it is time consuming and this is the reason why some tutors are reluctant in pursuing potential cases of plagiarism. However both the manual method of plagiarism detection and the electronic text matching method should be employed (Britag and Mahmud, 2009). Scaife (2007) argued that the electronic text matching software is not the solution to eliminating plagiarism because the software only focuses on text matching of paper under review with documents (journals, articles, e-books and conference papers) found on the internet or which has been previously submitted and this is a limitation because the only detection are focused on electronic materials without considering some non-electronic paper based documents which could still be plagiarised.

Universities have measures to prevent and catch students who have plagiarised their essays, however on a rare occasions plagiarism is unfortunately undetected. In such a circumstances, the student receives a high mark and passes the subject without gaining the knowledge in that field. According to Jude Carroll there are no solutions to fully prevent plagiarism, however with the plagiarism on the rise the universities are implementing methods to minimise it. “We will never prevent students from colluding, plagiarising and breaking the rules but we can deter them by putting in place a range of activities and procedures, each on its own unable to make much difference, but in combination, able to change the way everyone deals with

With the ever-increasing wealth of information provided by a simple Internet search, students are finding their resource options growing. From hundreds of topic specific sources to completely written essays, students are challenged to use their own words. Michelle Cleary addresses the issues of plagiarism faced by students today while giving real-life solutions from an instructor’s view in her article, "Top 10 Reasons Students Plagiarize & What Teachers Can Do about It (With Apologies to David Letterman)". From research methods to writing instructions, the author uses a cause and effect scenario to illustrate the plagiarism problems and suggests methods that encourage academic success. Students struggle not only with the temptation to plagiarize, but also worry about inadvertently plagiarizing, and the ramifications of their actions.

In “Academic Integrity and Student Plagiarism: a Question of Education, Not Ethics,” Susan Blum confronts the challenges associated with plagiarism, citation, and the education system. Initially, the author establishes plagiarism as a major problem on college campuses. Because previous approaches for dealing with plagiarism have been unsuccessful, many professors have turned to electronic software like Turnitin to identify student plagiarism (Blum 1). This means colleges and professors are desperate to find a solution to the increasing problem of plagiarism. Additionally, we see students are in need of a deeper understanding and education on the concept of plagiarism. Blum states, “Students must be persuaded of the value of citation - which

Plagiarism is a concern for academic honesty and personal integrity. When I was an undergrad in the late 1980’s, repositories of papers were kept in an academic department to aid in plagiarism detection. Plagiarism was evaluated by a Professor recognizing particular work and being forced to ask a student for validity of original thought. Today there are tools students can use to avoid plagiarism (Turn It In, 2014). For this course we will submit our writings to an internet site called Turn It In to avoid plagiarism.

Plagiarism is using someone else’s work, words, production, researches and ideas without the approval or the acknowledgment of the writer or producer, and claiming the credit for himself. Many reasons and factors are attributed for the use of plagiarism and could be cultural, historical, linguistic, environmental and educational background. Plagiarism is a form of an academic dishonesty, academic misconduct, and a digital cheating. It is declared to be an unacceptable legal act and institutional regulations. And universities, schools, and instructors do not only need to decrease plagiarism, but they must also affect positively on students writings, increase the understanding of how to use digital technology to facilitate their academic writing.

Being a college student is hard. College requires plenty of work. Some students have other things to do besides going to school; some of them need to work in order to pay for their tuition. When school isn’t the only thing students have to worry about, they might get behind in their classes, but they can’t fail them so they have to find out a way to stay on both their job and school. A large amount of students are pushed into cheating; they do it so often that suddenly it becomes a habit. Nowadays, plagiarism is extremely popular. Students don’t like using their brain anymore; they just copy and paste. To avoid plagiarism, students should do their own work; learn how to cite in a proper form, and understand that plagiarism can result in

Academic learning in today’s changing world brings demands to future professionals. Whether in a traditional classroom, or through distance learning, one thing is similar and which cannot bring forth a successful educational future. One thing that can damage anyone’s academic future is plagiarism. Whether being the future of a straight “A” student, or a student who is just getting by. The fact remains that anyone can fall victim to plagiarism. Plagiarism is the use of other writer’s words without acknowledging the source and taking those words and passing them off as one’s own ideas (Jones, 2001). Some people may think plagiarism is just copying someone else’s work but in reality plagiarism is much serious and hold very serious

Plagiarism, what is it and how to avoid it has been a major question on every students’ mind. Sure it is easy just to copy and paste and take all the credit for the work that another individual put in, but is it worth it? According to WPA, Writing Program Administrators, the definition of plagiarism as states, “plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.” Plagiarism has always concerned teachers and administrators, who want students’ work to repre¬sent their own efforts and to reflect the outcomes of their learning. However, with the advent of the Internet and easy access to almost limitless written material on