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Plagiarism Essay

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The number of plagiarism cases in Ireland is hard to quantify but O’Brien (2017) estimates that there have been 1,000 cases of plagiarism since 2010. O’Brien also states that the this number is only an estimate, as four universities did not provide any figures for this survey.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1972, p.926) defines plagiarism as taking and using

“another person’s (thoughts, writings, inventions…) as one’s own.”

When people plagiarise it shows a dishonest work ethic and it lowers the academic standards of the institution. This is why colleges check for plagiarism. The percentage of plagiarism can be found on any essay or project submitted by any of the students. This is to keep the …show more content…

TurnItIn is the most commonly used software to detect plagiarism. Fifteen thousand different colleges around the world use this software package (Hicks 2015). After the submitted work has gone through TurnItIn, it then provides the student and professor with a percentage of plagiarised work. However these percentages of plagiarised work can be influenced if you have the same name as anyone else in the same class, or if one uses a cliche or commonly used phrase. Another example of a different software that is used is SafeAssign which is linked with the Blackboard virtual learning system. It scans students work and compares it to other sources including any information put up by the academic staff or past papers submitted by previous students (Hicks 2015).

As the author of this essay is currently in AIT the following about plagiarism penalties and grading system will be from this institute and referring to the AIT Plagiarism Policy (2016a). In every faculty of the college there is an appointed Academic officer. The role of the academic officer is to be well versed in the policies and procedures that follow a suspected plagiarism incident. The registrar of the college also keeps a record of these cases. Before a case goes before the registrar there are a number of criteria that must be met first. If there is a suspicion of plagiarism the lecturer may initially go to a more senior member of the faculty and seek advice. After this consultation a form can be

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