Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism Essay

Plagiarism refers to the purposeful or accidental use of text without properly giving credit to its author. Bucks County Community College, A Statement from the Facility states the following, “It must help them to make connections among disciplines, help them develop an integrated view of knowledge, and help them recognize that their use of knowledge always carries consequences, as well as moral and ethical responsibilities.” An elaborated look at this sentence defines the responsibility we as students carry in our educational meaning. While plagiarism can be unintentional, taking credit for someone else 's work is wrong, students should consistently cite work while, professors should be aware of any plagiarism errors in order to correct them. Administrators should also voice plagiarism and enforce it, and most importantly the community at large should become aware of the wrongs in plagiarism to avoid further piracy.

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.

Plagiarism is defined as “the presentation of work for credit that is not [a writer’s] own” (Johanson, 2010, p. 267). The information obtained by a writer from another source should be cited in the text and referenced when paraphrasing or quoting another author’s material (APA, 2010). Student plagiarism can be avoided by using electronic resources or software to prevent unintentional plagiarism, educating students on how to properly cite and reference material in an academic writing, 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.

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.

Almost all colleges enforce policy when students commit plagiarism. With regard to plagiarism, two authors’ arguments differ. One of authors, Emma Teitel, a student in Dalhousie University, argued that the punishment of plagiarism is un-fare. She was punished for plagiarism in her third year. She claimed that she just made a technical mistake on her essay and did not intentionally plagiarize from another author’s work (Teitel, November 8, 2011). On the other hand, according to Todd Pettigrew, a professor in Kings University, colleges should make a rule clearly for plagiarized assignments depending on the number of offenses. For example, for student who commits plagiarism the second time should get a stronger punishment than the first offense.

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

I should fix all of my mistakes; if they are not it is considered plagiarism and I will receive a zero on my paper. I may also fail the class and get an academic red flag report. Turning in an old essay I did from another class or using parts of an old exposition is still considered plagiarism and I will receive the same punishment. A warning is a chance so I should take full advantage and fix them. If I do not understand something I should ask questions and get the help I need. When writing a paper, I should not forget the work cited page, page numbers, and text citations. Three ways that I can use to avoid plagiarism are to quote, paraphrase and summarize. I should quote when there is a conclusion or opinion with credentials. Facts should not be quoted, but cited instead. I should summarize so I can input ideas together. Building on paragraphs and explaining details is one example of summarizing. Lastly, paraphrasing should not be rearranged, but should be elaborated on certain ideas and explain how they all fit

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.

November 17. The Rules and Discipline Committee at Blair Academy is soon to hear a case over a plagiarism concern. It is always disappointing to hear the news of a possible break in the trust between members of the community and the community itself; and of course, this is not the first instance. This is, however, the first instance in which a teacher is being tried for such misconduct. To make matters even more intriguing, it was not a faculty member who brought the alleged infraction to the attention of the R&D, it was in fact a student.

In such a cases, students usually do very little research on the particular subject and simply copy information from internet, make slight changes to the words and present it as own work. This is also considered serious plagiarism because the information taken has not been quoted and the source has not been cited. Brian Martin argues that a lot of students are victims of this type of plagiarism because the students are unaware of the correct method of referencing and are unaware of their educational institution policy on paraphrasing, therefore it is essential students to become familiar with the university rules regarding paraphrasing and always put quotation marks and cite the source of information.

Most of us are planning on going on to bigger and better things after high school, whether it be college, or straight into careers we wish to pursue. In the midst of all this planning and preparing for our futures, we rush through our lives, and our homework. As  seniors in high school there are many things we have to  get done in short amounts of time, but we need to start making time to dodge plagiarism. Plagiarism is more than just getting a low grade on an essay, it is having future colleges and jobs see your use of plagiarism on any applications. As students wishing for success in our future, we need to be more aware of the consequences of plagiarism and how its importance will not only be carried with us throughout our teenage years,

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

I can avoid plagiarism and keep my integrity by doing my own work and using my own ideas on articles I read. I can also avoid plagiarism by remembering the consequences if I do commit plagiarism. Again I should always run my work threw the center for writing excellence. The college has no tolerance for plagiarism and I have to uphold to that.

In colloquial language plagiarism is the concept of stealing someone’s piece of work or someone’s idea. It is clear that plagiarising is unjust and immoral, however now a days it is becoming more difficult to come up with original ideas as the media allows students to have open access to all information and the producer or author must be very careful to not use somebody else’s work unintentionally and claim it as theirs. It is important to educate students about plagiarism as it can carry major consequences. The concept of plagiarism with reference to policy will be outlined and also the steps helping students and authors to avoid plagiarism in this assignment.