Plagiarism Essay

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.

Taking someone’s words and using them without a proper citation is a problem. Without being taught the correct way, this problem is not going to correct itself and will continue to become a bigger problem. There are major consequences for plagiarising, but these can be avoided with a simple citation. Tying together the definition of plagiarism, reasons for using documentation, and an explanation of MLA 8 and APA citations will all be brought together. Learning what kind of citation, and what needs a citation is a very important concept in becoming a successful writer. Citing a source correctly will save you time and problems.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Plagiarism- the act of using another person's words or ideas without giving credit to that person: the act of plagiarizing something (An Ecylopedia Britannica Company). Plagiarism or academic integrity is a well-known issue that has evolved with students and their schooling. Not only are college students involved in this act at unprecedented rate, but students in high school and middle school are as well. Unintentional plagiarism can be performed unbeknownst to the student.

Most academic concerns are based on student morals. Plagiarism detecting tools are a better source related to website or internet plagiarism such as a student’s awareness of peer behavior. According to McCabe et al. Perception of peer behavior is an important factor in academic integrity McCabe and Trevino (1993, 1996, and 1997). In other words, if students recognize that most of their peers are going online to plagiarize, they may be more obliged to plagiarize themselves.

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.

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

An inexperienced student may have complications in learning to avoid plagiarism. In high school, most students learn basic paper and essay writing skills in order to improve written communication skills; however, high school fails to teach students how to cite sources used to aid in writing those essays and papers. “Plagiarism is the act of presenting ideas, words, or organization of a source, published or not, as if they were one’s own” (Fox 3). For students, this requires the understanding that it is best to write and submit their own work, while noting

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.