What Is Plagiarism?

Malesic shares his own personal experience as an English teacher at a college just how often students are willing to plagiarize their papers. He talks about the first time he was offended by the student that did this, and thought that it was his fault, but as he consolidated with other teachers, he learned that plagiarism isn’t as rare as he considered. Many of his colleagues told different stories of the times that they have caught plagiarism throughout their career. He tells his story about the various causes of why this happens everywhere. Malesic comes up with that students think that they know everything there is about reading and writing, however, in order to plagiarize, the person has to have exceptional skills in English, which they often do not, and it is a dead giveaway. Just because he was hurt by plagiarizing, doesn’t mean he will do something necessary as a consequence

When a person commits plagiarism, they are putting their professional and personal reputation at risk. Plagiarism is a form of theft and dishonesty, and committing such an act will make a one appear to be an untrustworthy person. This could cause difficulty in obtaining a future job or being accepted into colleges. Furthermore, if a student in school commits plagiarism, they risk failing the class or possibly being expelled from the school completely. Many high schools and universities have very strict policies regarding plagiarism. Considering that plagiarism has risen so much in recent years, schools are being forced to crack down on the consequences regarding those who commit plagiarism. In order to prevent these students from receiving credit that they did not earn and from advancing in their field due to somebody else’s work, schools do not take the issue of plagiarism lightly. In addition to ruined reputation and educational consequences, individuals that commit plagiarism may also face legal action. The works of writers and researchers are often protected under copyright laws. This allows them to have the rights over their own work and to prosecute those that infringe on those rights. It is solely up to the writer to decide whether they will press charges on the plagiarist. Plagiarists have committed theft as it pertains to another person’s ideas

Plagiarism is an ongoing problem from high school to college and beyond. If you ask ten high school students about plagiarism, one out of every three students will have admitted to using plagiarism off the internet for an assignment. (Donald McCabe, Rutgers university) A survey conducted by Donald McCabe at Rutger’s University showed that out of 24,000 students at 70 different high schools, fifty-eight percent admitted to plagiarism. In another study he conducted with college students the numbers had increased greatly. Over the course of three years out of 63,700 students thirty-six percent admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet. Seven percent of those students admitted to copying word for word from a written source.(Donald McCabe 2002-2005 plagiarism.org) This survey he conducted just shows how plagiarism gets worse as students progress with their education if not not taught early.

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

students seem to turn to plagiarism as an answer to getting good grades or to finish an assignment quickly. A high schooler sometimes sees no other choice other than to cheat or copy off of another person because of either the importance of education to them, the student had a ton of other homework, or a sporting event took place the night before the due date. Either way, high schoolers often overlook the consequences of their actions since they believe the teacher will not know or find out. After evaluating the usage of plagiarism in schools, the adults must keep a closer watch on their students work and enforce the punishments because of how commonly used copying has become.

There are over a dozen reasons as to why student’s all over the globe plagiarize, but I’m here to specifically talk about a few. The few, but more common reasons why it’s done. The main points I’ll be covering include: Irresponsibility, procrastination, laziness, lack of motivation and time management, difficulty taking information and formatting it into their own words, and the professor showing an apathetic behavior towards the students.

Academic dishonesty such as plagiarism has been a major factor in education that has affected students’ success and academic achievements in recent years. Plagiarism according to Park (2003) is the act of appropriating or copying another person’s work and passing them on as one’s idea without acknowledging the original source. Park (2003) noted that plagiarism is a growing problem and has been a misuse of the writings of another author, their ideas, hypothesis, theories, research findings and interpretations. Furthermore studies by Chao, Wilhelm and Neureuther (2009) emphasised that

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

Students may accidentally cheat without knowing due to lack of teaching during high school or may purposely commit the crime because they believe they can outsmart their professors. The plagiarists who believe they outplayed their professors because they think the instructors will not see their cheating due to their enormous load of papers and a busy schedule, however, the professors check every paper carefully no matter the workload. In addition to, the professors will always check Google, and many plagiarists tend to forget that the instructor has access to the web address to double check to see if the student stole information. Students who actively plagiarize, remain lazy and seem careless about their future. They have no worries about what copying can lead to because they want to pass, not to learn. Laziness shows the sign of the leading cause for cheating due to students wishing to pay ghostwriters or who copy and paste work from a website rather than paraphrasing. Genuinely confused students who do not understand the concept of plagiarism that well make do with exceptions due to their mistakes although, students who plagiarize have no excuse of their slothfulness because they know the result of

Evering and Moorman also noted that McCabe said, “Many high school students believe...that if information is on the Internet, it is public knowledge and does not need to be footnoted – even if it’s quoted verbatim”. Evering and Moorman say students who plagiarize are only representing someone else’s work instead of their own. Jobs as teachers are to help student create, develop and perfect a student’s own work and abilities however, they cannot do so with students plagiarizing. Regardless of the consequence, students still find the need to plagiarize. Evering and Moorman says it’s because student are too lazy and just don’t feel like doing the assignment but also the “underdeveloped sense of integrity...lack of

The concept of plagiarism is remarkably personal and this has been a subject of debate. Most critics argue that not only does technologies like the internet and smart phones distract students but it makes students perform poorly in school, but they also argue that it increases their chances to plagiarized. For example, in a research conducted in a university about the assessment and evaluation in Higher Education, 75% of students strongly agreed that using someone’s work without citing their work is wrong. If many of students believe this, why do somer student plagiarized. As a student myself, I knew students that plagiarized. Though they knew their actions were bad, they wanted to get a good grade.Most believed that it was not a big deal

A large reason students today are cheating is simply because they aren’t understanding the assignment. It isn’t necessarily a lack of teaching, but some students struggle to follow the specific methods teachers’ use. Take math for example, some teachers will only allow a specific method; otherwise the work will be counted incorrect. From a students perspective, it’s much easier to copy down someone else’s work, than to continuously get a problem wrong and watch their grade go down.

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

Students now have the ability to cut and paste sections of an article, or they can purchase a term paper on-line. He also believes that they plagiarize because they “are faced with too many choices, so they put off low priorities.”[4] If a student has a lot of things to do, they will not spend much time on the things that have a low priority or things that are considered boring. He also points out that a big reason for plagiarism is that “many students have poor time management and planning skills.”[5] If the student waits until the last minute to write a paper, they may not have enough time to completely research topic. Other students plagiarize because they “fear that their writing ability is inadequate.”[6] If the student does not believe that they have the ability to do good work, they may think that the only chance to get a good grade is to cheat.

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.