“ACADEMIC DISHONESTY, with Internet plagiarism as one of the most common forms, is a concern on college and university campuses more than ever before. A review of the literature validates these concerns. According to a 2003 nationwide research study of 23 public and private colleges and universities, conducted by Donald L. McCabe, Internet plagiarism is on the rise. Thirty-eight percent of the undergraduate students surveyed indicated that they had engaged in Internet plagiarism (as cited in Rimer, 2003); one study states that nearly 49% of students in undergraduate marketing classes admitted cheating in 1988 compared to 100% of the students in an undergraduate management class in 2008 (Brown, Weible, & Olmosk, 2010). Education Week found that 54% of surveyed students admitted to Internet plagiarism, and 76% admitted to cheating; and the Center for Academic Integrity found almost 80% of the college students surveyed admitted to cheating at least once (“Facts About Plagiarism,” 2011)” (Jones, 2011). The overwhelming increase in academic dishonesty, cheating, and plagiarism within student bodies across the country have created a concern for the morality and discernment of those inside the field of academia. It has created a rise in question of whether or not students these days have the capabilities to ethically choose the correct decisions, not just in academics, but also throughout life.
A national survey conducted by Education Week estimated that fifty-four percent of students admitted to plagiarizing information from the Internet (Plagiarism.org 1). At the University of California-Berkley officials have stated that there was an averaged seven hundred and forty-four percent increase in cheating between the years of 1993 to 1997 (Plagiarism Statistics ¡ Did You Know??? 1). Perhaps one of the reasons for this drastic increase of cheating is the easiness in which one can find the documents that they plagiarize. Popular websites such as ¡www.schoolsucks.com¡ and ¡www.a1-termpapers.com¡ provide immoral and slacking students with hundreds of prefabricated essays (Plagiarism, Ethics & the WWW 2), equipped with word count and grade received.
Ethics in the United States has reached an all-time low. Each new generation carries with it the latest acceptable standards for ethics and plagiarism in the educational setting. Copious studies have been, and are still being, done on plagiarism. These studies have observed cheating in many forms, as well as the concept of how plagiarism and cheating are carried out.
Plagiarism
For many, many years schools have been trying to stop students from plagiarizing materials. Detecting this plagiarism used to be easy because students only had access to books in the library, magazines, and encyclopedias. However, as the popularity of the Internet increased, so did the number of essays and papers being plagiarized. Students can easily go onto the internet and in no time at all find and essay on their topic of choice.
Different Types of Plagiarism
The better educated you are, the better off you are socially, and economically. Having a degree is, in general, a good indicator of your level of education. To get it some students study very hard. Others, on the contrary, prefer to take some shortcuts that seem to be easier for them.
Evaluated more thoroughly, these statistics show not only a problem with student plagiarizing, but also an underlying problem of the failure to recognize it as a severe threat to the future development of today’s society. In order for society to continue to grow and prosper in technology, educators and employers alike must realize that plagiarism is indeed a genuine concern and as a result, must be dealt with in a more severe matter to encourage individualism. Often the threat of a failed grade or expulsion from a university is not enough to deter students from cheating if known instances have not been appropriately dealt with in the past. If the problem is to be mended, educators must make examples of students who plagiarize written material, so we can discontinue the trend that seems to be irresistible to today’s society.
The article Cybercheats clearly shows the cause/use of plagiarism. Students of all ethnic backgrounds use plagiarism. However it also shows how most schools are trying to crack down. Two employees from National Institutes of Health actually have a program that can decode essays that may have some sort of plagiarism. It is clearly obvious that the students who do indeed use this from of cheating have no real values. As Michael Miller, a teacher at Georgetown University, says, "It's really up to the individual reader to do with the information what they will, good or evil. I belong to a school that says teach people to do the right thing and then turn'em loose." It seems that if you are adult enough to actually attend collage then you are adult enough to handle the pressures and responsibilities that come along with it. For most cases the use of plagiarism is clearly used by students who don't know the value/capabilities of there own. They also aren't usually aware of the consequences.
Plagiarism is stealing, cheating and just plain wrong. When you think of plagiarism, you probably just think of someone copying and pasting information from the Internet. But did you know that people can also plagiarize songs and not just information from the internet? Take Justin Bieber for example. He was sued back in 2013 for $10 million for copyright infringement. He supposedly stole lyrics from "two Virginia songwriters who claim that Bieber's song "Somebody to Love" contains numerous lyrical and stylistic similarities to the song they wrote in 2008 by the same name." (NY Daily News. Justin Bieber, Usher sued for $10 million for copyright infringement. February 06, 2014.)
Plagiarism: The Death of Originality
Have you ever known someone who plagiarized, either unknowingly or intentionally? Have you? It is very to plagiarize, today in a world of technology. Sadly enough, many people don't even know what it truly is, which can sometimes lead to plagiarizing without knowing it.
The American heritage dictionary has defined plagiarism as the act of presenting another writer’s work; words and ideas, as one’s own without due attribution. According to Heywood Ehrlich of Rutgers University plagiarism entails the use of phrases, paragraphs, ideas or even the whole script of another author without sufficient acknowledgment. Plagiarism is simply an intellectual theft that involves stealing and publishing of another author’s work as one's own original work. It is an unfair competition which has been accelerated by the ease to access intellectual property due to a rise in technology – internet. The word plagiarism originated from Latin plagiārius, meaning "kidnapper". Self-plagiarism is the situation where an author reuses portions of his/her own work without acknowledging its source.