Plagiarism: a Social Problem

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.

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.

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.

"When plagiarism is a plea for help" written by Helen Rubinsein is an argument focusing on informing the teachers and professors about how to deal with student’s plagiarism, helping and understanding troubles behind them. This article is mainly about an professor’s inner struggles and conflicts with one of his students named Susan. Susan is a student, who always make up excuses for failing to attend class. She was also one of the students who attempted plagiarism. Professor gave Susan a “F” and struggled between whether to report her to the dean or not. After Susan died from overdose drug, professor felt guilty about giving her a “F”, and later noticed the behind meaning of plagiarism is powerless, so why fail them when you can help them pass?

The students at Lakewood Ranch High School also insinuated that plagiarism was not discussed in class, suggesting that they were insufficiently informed about plagiarism and what it represented. Say this is true the corrective measure would be to discuss plagiarism at the beginning of the school year as well as providing a review during the middle of the academic year. Regardless, these adolescents are capable of understanding concepts, standard principles of morality (Feldman, 2014). Therefore, in my opinion they were aware of their actions of intentional copying and submitting another person’s work. Which ultimately resulted with a greater desire for rewards despite the possibility of

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.

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

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

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

Arizona State University (ASU) is dealing with a case of plagiarism, Presenting someone else’s words or ideas without acknowledging where those words and ideas were located, (Ann Raimes, 2013, pg 153) against one of its professors. This is the third time the professor has been accused of using others ideas as his own without citing his source. Should this professor have a job? Let’s take a look at the three accounts and decide if they were a misunderstanding or just plain plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the process of taking some one else work or ideas and showing it as their own works (Oxford Dictionaries). The purpose of this study is to understand 6 different ethical reasons used by student to overcome with plagiarism and with help of these ethical reason, faculties can bring a solution to stop or prevent plagiarism. Where as unethical behavior can also lead to worries in school or colleges, so there is need to correct it so that it has positive impact on organizational ethics. Although, after reading this journal article, it was clearly seen that mostly used ethical reasons are Deontology, Situational Ethics and Machiavellianism to overcome with the problem of Plagiarism (Ashworth and Bannister, 1997).

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.

and had to retake the course in another semester. Another case involving a student who denied plagiarism resulted in the student’s expulsion from the school. The question is how do universities and instructors decide what consequences will be applied to which students? Many schools use the “A-B-C-D-E model (Kiehl, 2006, p. 201), the intent of which is to make the concepts of decision-making models practical, rather than abstract” (Kiehl, 2006, p. 200).“The letters A-B-C-D-E serve as a mnemonic in which A = assessment, B = benefit, C = consequences and consultation, D = duty, and E = education” (Kiehl, 2006, p. 201). Using this model makes it easier ethically to hand down a punishment to a student (Kiehl, 2006, p. 200). In the academic learning environment today, students are surrounded with ideas and thoughts of others. These works can be accessed through written material, electronically, heard in lectures and sermons, or even in class discussions. Without giving proper credit to the author of the original work plagiarism is the outcome (Lowe, 2003). Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional. In an academic environment students are faced withmany ways to practice intentional plagiarism such as downloading a paper from the internet, paraphrasing without using the proper citations, copying papers from students who may have already completed a course and various other ways. Students