Plagiarism can be defined as the unlawful misuse of another author’s publications, ideas and terms with the intention of representing them as your own unique personal work. In the modern world, plagiarism is viewed as an ill in the society although it is not clearly categorized as a crime. In this sense, plagiarism is considered as an immoral practice towards the intellectual property rights of the original authors. With respect to this, persons found guilty of plagiarism can be dealt with regards to property rights breach. Plagiarism in its nature is viewed as a violation especially to the readers of the plagiarized work. The same is viewed to teachers who may be presented with such type of work. Plagiarism is believed to affect a majority of persons in the academic world which consequently compromises the credibility of their educational quality. Plagiarism is also common in the journalism industry where a number of journalists have a tendency to use other people’s work without consent. The paper ought to achieve more insights on the issue of plagiarism in order to get an conversant understanding.
Many people don’t get to know when they commit the offence of plagiarism which is very rampant in modern days. The article terms the ways through which people apply plagiarism on their work as “the plagiarism fish” and subject to this it is advisable that people should not take any risky swimming around this “fish”. It spells out that there are various types of plagiarism, depending on how they are performed. The first way that people plagiarize their work is through copying and pasting of documents from the internet. This may present itself in different dimensions; to begin with, some people paste documents as they appear on the internet and only add their names as the authors of those works. Another way is where people copy and paste sections or paragraphs and then paraphrases them using some transitional words. This type of plagiarism can easily be detected by use of search engines such as Google. Secondly, plagiarism is also committed when people try to blend fragments from different publications done by other authors. People doing this aim at coming up with a compiled document from different sources. Such work lacks the consistency required since there are major shifts from one source to the other. This is mainly accelerated by the fact that students or persons envy doing quantitative researches or applying their personal ideas in writing their works. Hence they always fall prey to the use of other author’s work hence end up swimming around the plagiarism fish. This kind of plagiarism is also easy to detect because such writings usually contain dislodged words and paragraphs. This is due to the existence of multiple characters in the work.
The third type of plagiarism occurs when students turn in work done by a different class, this mainly occurs due to laxity among the students. Such students are lured into using other classes’ works for their current classes. The teachers must be keen to ensure they get the correct work for the class. It is possible that students would turn in work for a different topic in class which is done in the correct manner. In such cases, it is obviously evident that the student committed plagiarism since the topics would not match. For this case, the teacher has to be extremely vigilant to ensure that he or she detects any form of plagiarism by the students. The fourth type of plagiarism occurs when people seek to adapt other person’s papers by slightly modifying them. Like the second type, this happens because many people lack confidence in their ideas and expressions and hence, tend to transform other people’s work, which they feel perceive better than their own. This is common in research papers where students would tend to use other studies conducted previously by different researchers. This involves modification of the papers to suit the student’s needs, and consequently they would adapt the paper as their own.
Lastly, plagiarism can occur when students buy term papers from other people without the knowledge of how such papers have been developed. This usually differs with the level of intelligence of the students because some paper may have been done by people in high educational level than the student’s. Other papers could have been developed by persons with poor intelligence thus it can compromise the student’s aptitude. This form of plagiarism would also be negating the teacher’s ability since the students do not apply the ideas learnt in class to write their own papers. All these forms of plagiarism have severe penalties especially when it comes to the academic aspect of the persons involved. It is specified that students indulging in the acts of plagiarism amount to educational dishonesty, which is an offence that can lead to expulsion of the student from the school (Francis, 2005). This depends on the rules and regulations set by the institution. However, to be on the safe side students are advised to acknowledge citations in their work especially when they use another person’s work.
Plagiarism also affects journalists in their course of work; it is therefore, not limited to students alone. Journalists play an important role to the public and therefore, are expected to portray high moral standards to the people. Reporters can copy and paste articles from the internet and use them as their own. Conversely, this is unethical and journalists who commit this offence of plagiarism are charged, and they can be suspended from their official duties. Based on the insights provided by the paper it is quite peculiar that students engage in plagiarism acts due to the pressure of earning better grades at school. This lures them into using other people’s work, which in their minds is meant to make them excel in their class work. Students also plagiarize their work since most of them have become lazy. Thus would not do more research on their own to come up with better work or just because they don’t trust their own ideas and expressions. The issue of plagiarism has rampantly amplified with time and hence it would be wise for the authorities to set up strict and stringent rules against this immoral act. This can be in the form of sanctions to people caught with acts of plagiarism. Students can be sanctioned from the institution; this would be useful in reducing cases of plagiarism. Schools can also come up with plagiarism tariffs where students found guilty of plagiarism are charged by the school. These regulations can also be applied out of the school, for instance in the journalism industry where we have plagiarism cases. In doing so, it would greatly help to ensure that cases of plagiarism are minimized. This will ensure people respect each other’s intellectually property rights thus ensuring harmony in the society.
References
Francis, B. (2005). Other people’s words: What plagiarism is and how to avoid it. New Jersey, USA: Enslow.
