Plagiarism has become an increasingly prominent issue in todays society. The internet has changed from an educational aid to an open sea for plagiarism and cyber cheating. It facilitates the unauthorized use of other peoples’ original ideas, essays, quotes, and other original material. Some teachers have even begun to require students to use the web to obtain sources for research papers to familiarize them with the current standards in society. But sometimes what turns into research for a paper can easily become plagiarism by copying a sentence here and there. The internet has become one of the most popular and easiest ways of cheating. Within seconds students can find thousands of free pre-written essays available online, where they copy ideas …show more content…
Some people don’t even realize that they are plagiarizing until a teacher tells them. So what really is plagiarism? According to the dictionary, plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else 's work or ideas and passing them off as one 's own. Cheating and plagiarism comes in several ways; it doesn’t just have to be stealing essays from the internet. It varies from stealing music to copying someone else’s test, texting answers to classmates, or even buying a custom made essay. Students who procrastinate or are simply lazy are the typical customers who pay other people to write an essay for them. Because of the widespread use of the internet, students are now easily able to get a custom essay emailed directly to them without having someone in real life to do the task. Websites such as affordaletermpapers.com make a killing by charging a “minimum of $9.95 per page for a custom written paper. If the paper needs to be written immediately the price jumps to $24.95 per page” (Rawe …show more content…
Turnitin is a plagiarism detection company where everyday students submit their essays that then become stored on the companies’ database. The papers are then compared to over 12 billion web pages, more than 10,000 newspapers, books, and magazines, and every other student paper already in their database. The service then sends the paper back, highlighting the copied/plagiarized portions giving the overall paper a percentage of originality. Schools and Universities subscribe to Turnitins’ service for about 87 cents per student each year (Walsh 621). The company produces tens of millions of dollars each year in revenue because of the high demand to stop and catch plagiarism. Personally, I have had experience with Turnitin.com; my high school subscribed to the service and I submitted my work to it for every essay I wrote. In my experience it was generally pretty helpful to see if the paper was being cited correctly. Teachers would use the percentage of plagiarism that Turnitin gave them along with their own intuition to determine a grade. Many schools use this service, but what they decide to do with the information they receive is entirely up to them. Some schools will fail a student if any plagiarism is found, while other schools use the service as a learning opportunity by teaching the students how to properly cite and quote their sources (Walsh
The CCCC also worries that programs like Turnitin will make college faculty complacent by shifting responsibility for detecting plagiarism onto technology. It’s only a matter of time before students learn to beat the software. I have personally tested it with my students, asking them to cheat; many of their transgressions went undetected by Turnitin. Students who run originality reports that come out clean may still have made mistakes, but if they rely too heavily on the report, they will not know it.
The problem of plagiarism has increased drastically over the years with all of the new electronic sources. Now, all that the student has to do is to copy an article, highlight it and paste it into a word processing program. It was not much harder for a student to plagiarize before the Internet. A lazy student could easily copy an entire section out of a book word for word and conveniently “forget” to cite the reference from which it came. It would take the professor forever to find this source especially if it was not well known. With just some quick manipulating of words, professors can be tricked into believing that they are looking at a new original work.
I love procrastinating and then cheating and plagiarizing to get my essays and research papers complete on time! The only drawback is a website called turnitin.com Teachers use turnitin.com to check for plagiarism in submitted papers. This website often indicates plagiarism when all the writing is completely original. This is called a "false positive". Although a "false positive" has no negative impact at all on the owners of turnitin.com, it can destroy a students academic future!
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.
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
It's with a great deal of interest that I've been following the most recent uproar in the blogoshpere about Turnitin.com and about whether or not higher ed is taking the proverbial low ground in the ethical battles by the increasing use of Turnitin. It is my opinion and always has been that there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole process of requiring students to turn in their work to the plagiarism police.
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
When times get rough and tough it seems like most students do turn to the internet for a little extra "help". In Cybercheats it clearly shows how students use certain websites to get free or even pay for important papers and essays. As technology gets more advanced it appears that some people actually get lazier. Plagiarism plays a very important and major part in this article. It is clear that if caught plagiarizing you can be suspended, expelled, and/or receive an F on your assignment. For most students though it is worth the risk. Plagiarism is an act of cheating. Plagiarism is cheating.
The book, Other People’s Words: What Plagiarism Is and How to Avoid it, has taught me many things about plagiarism. Some of the things this book taught me are the definition and some ways to avoid plagiarism.
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.
Many students are using technology to cheat because they are able to find answers quickly online by just searching for them. Cheating is increasing in the United States at higher rates because many of the students in high school or in college have to deal with different responsibilities, pressure, and loads of different types of work. Richard Perez Peña states in “Studies Find More Students Cheating,” “Internet access has made cheating easier, enabling students to connect instantly with answers, friends to consult and works to plagiarize.” Plagiarism, which means using a work of someone else as if it were yours, is the most common form of cheating in high school and in college. Plagiarism occurs by not citing a source correctly or by not putting the proper quotation marks on a quote that you borrow to state your point. Some students don’t even know what plagiarism is, and they do it using the technology that we have today. Therefore, Julie Rasicot states, “High schools and teachers should make clear what constitutes plagiarism, how to avoid it and what the consequences will be if students are caught.” If students are not informed about plagiarism, then they tend to use technology as an easy way to do an assignment, which prevents them from learning. On the other hand, many professors have argued that the technology is developing
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.
Plagiarism is something that is not respected, condoned, or accepted in any part of the education process. Not only does it steal someone else’s work, but it robs students of the learning experience they can gain from assignments. Plagiarism is immoral and unethical. According to the dictionary, plagiarism is “The submission of material authored by another person being represented as a student’s own work,” whether that material is paraphrased, completely copied or fragmentally copied. Basically, plagiarism is “to take ideas or writings from another and pass them off as one’s own” (Webster’s New World Dictionary). Plagiarism has been around since humanities first words were written, making it is easy for students to turn to it. Students will
Plagiarism is a very serious subject to talk about. It doesn’t sound like it is that big of a deal but very serious things can come out of it. Students could lose scholarships and get kicked out of school for something as simple as copying someone else’s work. Students should learn the rules and regulations of the school ,that they are attending, about plagiarism.[1] That’s basically what plagiarism is; copying someone else’s work.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and a growing trend in our society today. Some may associate plagiarism with the idea of taking someone else’s writing and making it their own. In fact plagiarism involves anything that is copied or taken and said to be of your own work. Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work, as by not crediting the author”. In fact this definition covers all types of cheating and misrepresentation of ones own work. There are many numbers and statistics that can be found on the amount of individuals that have admitted to cheating. Perhaps the most astounding number is one that was reported by Moeck in 2002 aloft of 40% of higher education students commit academic dishonesty. This number I’m sure has grown since this report and will continue to grow with the development of the Internet. There are a number of ideas and strategies that can be employed in order to stop this ever-growing phenomenon. As teachers and adults, we are responsible for stopping this trend and educating students about the consequences and dangers of plagiarism. I believe there are a variety of reasons individuals plagiarize. First, students are insecure with their own ability; they don’t believe they can do the work therefore they take others. Second, students believe they can get away with the act because they know others who have plagiarized, and there were not any consequences. Lastly, students are uneducated on what plagiarism is and do not know the consequences of their actions if they commit an act. These ideas will be the focus of the position taken on plagiarism in today’s academic society.