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What Is Plagiarism?

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The use of a person’s ideas or work and not giving due credit constitutes plagiarism. Furthermore, Bretag (2013) pointed out that “plagiarism is a serious breach of academic integrity in that it detracts from the value of original and honest scholarly work” (p.3). This highlights the fact that, passing off a person’s work as ones’ own has become a problem in both the professional and academic environment. Changing a few words in an idea, copy and paste, omitting to cites sources, and not paraphrasing are all aspects of plagiarism. Hansen, Stith, and Tesdell (2011) have suggested that in our academic culture plagiarism is considered to be a form of cheating and therefore unethical. Proper accolade must be given to original authors of …show more content…

At all times credit must be given to the original author. This can be done by citing the original source. At the same time utilizing quotation signs, phrases, synonyms, antonyms and general verbs will aid in avoiding plagiarism. Engaging in plagiarism usually leads to negative outcomes. In the professional setting the result of this action can cause lack of trust or confidence, confusion among associates and management, a change in the focus of the organization as work time is spent on addressing plagiarism. This can also cause a decrease in production, resulting in a negative impact on the company’s bottom line. Ultimately this will cast a shadow on the organization and the community may have a negative perception of the company. As an example, recently in the entertainment industry, a lawsuit was filed by the estate of Marvin Gaye against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. The lawsuit contended that their hit song copied the late Marvin Gaye’s 1997 song. They were sued for copyright infringement. The judge ruled that this was in fact true and instructed them to pay $7.3m to Mr. Gaye’s family. Naturally this was a victory and a financial gain for the family of Mr. Gaye and a major loss for Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams. This can also lead to excessive scrutiny of future works of these

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