Introduction
An infectious, virulent plague is ravaging the landscape of academia. It consumes young and old, male and female. The doctors won’t touch it for fear of ineffective results do to the rampant spread of “everyone has done it.” Plagiarism, as defined by the Austin Peay Woodard Library (2004), is “the act of using someone else's words, sentences, or ideas and passing them off as your own without giving credit by citing the original source.” While plagiarism isn’t actually a disease, its spread has been nothing short of pandemic. An infographic found at Schools.com lays out a telling revelation that over 75% of students admit to some form of plagiarism in their academic career. (Lynch, 2011) On the surface, it would appear that we may never find the cure to plagiarism, especially with the rise of universal access to information on the Internet. It is my position that this simply isn’t true; a prescription exists to eradicate the virus of plagiarism: 1) educate students early and often about the dangers of plagiarism; 2) identify and utilize a set of tools that aid the student in avoiding accidental plagiarism; and 3) encourage and reward students who strive for academic honesty.
Counterclaim on Plagiarism
According to Nels Griffin, the pandemic of plagiarism is a hoax. He asserts in his paper that nearly every thought at this point is unoriginal; he goes so far as to say that, in part, all new thought is the derivative of the work of another mind. (Griffin, 2009) Some credence can be made for this argument in that most academic work rests on the shoulders of giants. The author, however, fails to really understand the purpose of citation. A citation is the method by which an author attributes credit and then bui...
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... Students. Plagiary: Cross‐ Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification , 1 (4), 1-8.
Griffin, N. (2009, July 26). Appropriate Criteria for Plagiarism. Retrieved November 4, 2013, from Beyond the Prose: http://www.beyondprose.com/index.php/appropriate-criteria-for-plagiarism-131558/
Lynch, L. (2011, September 16). Cheating in school: How the digital age affects cheating and plagiarism. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from Schools.com: http://www.schools.com/visuals/academic-dishonesty.html?WT.qs_osrc=gensynd-cheater
Mitchell, S. (2007). Penguins and Plagiarism: Stemming the Tide of Plagiarism in Elementary School. Library Media Connection , 25 (7), 47.
Woodard Library: APSU. (2004). Plagiarism: The Crime of Intellectual Kidnapping. Retrieved November 9, 2013, from Woodard Library of Austin Peay State University: http://library.apsu.edu/plagiarism/
In the article, “The Plague of Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty”, written by Kimberly Embleton and Doris Small-Helfer, the authors discuss the well-known subject of plagiarism. The authors not only define plagiarism, but they also discuss the different ways in which the Internet has played a role in the plagiarism problem, as well as how teachers, professors, instructors also have established ways to combat this educational, or not–so-educational epidemic of academic dishonesty.
Scott Jaschik discusses various situations of plagiarism in college in his article, “Winning Hearts and Minds in War on Plagiarism,” in order to argue that there are more efficient solutions to prevent plagiarism. Having his article published in an online news source, Inside Higher Ed, allows for Jaschik to have an audience of first year English and college instructors interested in learning about higher education. Jaschik writes in general to an audience who is interested in academic integrity and those who want to either stop or learn more about plagiarism. Jaschik employs various situations such as an online student discussion board and an assignment to purposely plagiarize in order to highlight common issues with why students plagiarize.
The seven-paged college journal entitles “Can Paraphrasing Practice Help Students Define Plagiarism?” by Barry explain about the study of students understanding towards plagiarism through paraphrasing. Researchers ask for students, in a written form, to explain the definition of plagiarism in a set of time before and after paraphrasing practice. The main focus of the researcher and many instructors are concerned about is why students cannot avoid plagiarism. Several studies have proved that the lack of students’ knowledge about plagiarism led the students plagiarize something as depicted in some other researches findings.
Stolley, K. and Brizee, A. (2011-06-02). “Avoiding Plagiarism: Overview and Contradictions”. The Writing Lab, Purdue University. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/
New York Times journalist, Trip Gabriel, puts into perspective students ability to use their creativity throughout their academic career in “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age.” This article discusses issues of plagiarism in the digital age, especially through college students. There are different perspectives from various people either attending college or professors that argue why plagiarism occurs. Whether it’s because of laziness, unpreparedness going into college, originality, or authorship not taken into consideration. Overall, this article infers the different standpoints of plagiarism, demonstrating the ease the digital age gives students to plagiarize, and the importance
...own its scholars. Plagiarism has become so widespread and tolerated, that it is almost too much work to eradicate. The result is sending a message to students that plagiarism is an issue of cleverness (who can avoid being caught) rather than morality. For this, I am saddened that higher standards of thought and morality are not enforced for the good of the scholar and society.
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. Those, not so much interested in acquiring a solid education, simply want to plagiarize to pass their classes, to get that degree. Plagiarism spreads out through any level of our education system. It even extends beyond that limit to reach almost any aspect of our society. With the internet revolution, this problem becomes more acute. “The web has provided global access to an unfathomable cornucopia of term papers, essays, and other scholarly works, right there out in the open for purchase or outright theft” (Simonson, Smaldino, & Zvacek, 2015, p. 160). This paper will discuss the different types of plagiarism. Before getting deeper into that discussion, we will start by explaining the word plagiarism.
In the technological world we live in, where we’re only a click away from accessing the web, with billions and billions of searches to our question, plagiarizing has become easier than before. Plagiarism is the act of taking other people 's work and ideas without giving them credit. This can include any form of cheating. Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in the Digital Age, written by Trip Gabriel explores the misunderstanding of plagiarism by students. It also provide anecdotes and reasons given by different people to why students plagiarize without necessarily choosing a stand. Interestingly, it have been found that students still plagiarize knowing that it is wrong, which contradicts the idea that students misunderstand authorship. Authorship
In the first place, writing at any level is a challenge. It is a process that requires active thinking as well as creativity. Equally important, is the drive to understand what is necessary to inform the reader when using someone else’s work. In his findings, Gabriel begins with examples of students that committed plagiarism in colleges both unknowingly and intentionally. After exploring the opinions of writing tutors and officials in these situations, he suggests that many students fail to realize that plagiarism is a crime (Gabriel). He relies on the expert opinions of educators who deal with these situations on a daily basis. One such opinion mentioned, is that of Teresa Fishman, the director for the Center of Academic Integrity at Clemson University (Gabriel). She stated, “It’s possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take” (qtd. in Plagiarism Lines). This is said in reference to how easy technology has made “copying” and “pasting” of information according to Gabriel. He visits both sides of the fence, so to speak, concerning the views...
The problem of plagiarism has haunted the academic world for centuries. Plagiarism is defined as “taking ideas, passages, etc from an author and presenting them, unacknowledged, as one’s own”.[1] This problem was limited in the past by the lack of materials available to plagiarize, either in libraries, newspapers, magazines, or in academic files of campus organizations. With the birth of the Internet however, the ability to commit fraud through plagiarism has greatly increased. In this electronic age, there are many materials available that promote plagiarism, and many measures being applied to detect it.
Plagiarism is seen as a severe contravention of normal scholarly conduct, necessitating colleges and universities in the US and UK to establish eit...
"can shift attention away from teaching students how to avoid plagiarism in the first place. In “Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices,” the Council of Writing Program Administrators urges teachers to “use plagiarism detection services cautiously,” for they should “never be used to justify the avoidance of responsible teaching methods.”
Plagiarism, or the unaccredited use of another's work or ideas, has become more and more of a problem in recent times than it was in the past. According to statistics found in a survey conducted by the Free Press, 58% of high school students let someone copy their work in 1969, but by 1989 this number had risen to 97%. The expansion of the World Wide Web and the number of people accessing the Web on a regular basis has caused an epidemic of plagiarism in this country, especially among students. This is a serious problem that must be addressed because many students feel that if they are not getting in trouble for cheating, than it is okay.
From the information I gathered for this paper, plagiarism is a bigger problem than we all think. As far as I can tell plagiarism has been around since the existence of reading and writing. Our human race sure hasn't helped this matter by inventing the printing press in the late fifteen-century and the Internet in the late twentieth century. Plagiarism gets most of its press in the realm of education, particularly in places of higher education. Aside from the information I attained threw traditional research, I poled a few students here at Lake Superior State University. I got this idea from some of the articles I read. I read this one article that was about a professor that said she estimated that 17% of the papers students turned in to her were plagiarized. Those were the ones that she was actually sure about. So when I did my pole I asked students if they had plagiarized a paper this semester. The overwhelming response was...I plagiarize all my papers. A whopping 100% of the students I talked to plagiarized this semester and as far as I can tell, every semester. No, this was not a scientific study, but it sure was shocking. It is my guess that some of these people are ignorant, but a majority of them are lazy. In the rest of my paper I will explain plagiarism in its many forms, discuss how the Internet has affected academic integrity, and highlight some of the ways teachers and professors are detecting and combating this problem known as plagiarism.
As students of high school and college, and even in the professional world, we are asked to research and write on subjects that are seen to be important. The research that we are asked to do, has been done many times in the past, which means people are bound to use others’ ideas and words with no recognition, sometimes without even knowing it. This leads to plagiarism, which is something many people have heard of, but never learned the true definition and the harm it can create. Schools and society need to be more proactive in explaining what plagiarism is, how to write correctly in order to prevent it, and teach the consequences plagiarism has.