The Importance Of Plagiarism

Introduction/The Incidence of Plagiarism Although it is true that plagiarism has been an issue for some time, it has been suggested that the act of plagiarism is on the rise. Furthermore, it has been suggested to be progressing into areas of study that have previously been considered implausible to be affected by this act. Literary theft, or plagiarism, has been extending into the fields of medicine, science, engineering, and even fiction (Fusch, Ness, Booker, & Fusch, 2017). While this may be true, it is difficult to find evidence to support this. However, a study done by the BBC Radio 4 “World at One” news Programme, found that eight out of ten students had stated that they were using others’ work and calling it their own (Pecorari,

Additionally, it is possible that a student is not motivated to read and comprehend a text and reformulate it in their own words with proper citation. Some students may not understand the consequences and ethical implications of plagiarizing. Finally, it is possible that a student continues plagiarizing because it has given them better grades in the past (Neville, 2010).

Internet Issues Somewhat recently, the Internet has become an integral part in the field of education. However, this has not come without consequences, especially pertaining to plagiarism. Students have given the reason that they plagiarize because of the Internet. More specifically, one reason is because it is simply easy to plagiarize using the Internet. For example, it is not complicated to copy and paste, and with the vast amount of information on the Internet, sometimes students just cannot resist (Pecorari, 2013). The Internet has contributed to the plagiarism epidemic on an extremely large scale. While it is not possible to know exactly the extent of plagiarism on the Internet, it was reported in 2015 (Adams; as cited by Signh & Remenyi, 2016) that 58,000 students in the previous 4 years had been accused of plagiarism. The cases involved a range of the extent of plagiarism, including those who copied entire works from the