In many occasions, tutors and lecturers would give strict instructions that plagiarized work shall be penalized heavily. This is a common phenomenon in all colleges and universities across the globe. What then constitutes of plagiarism? Is it ethical to plagiarize work? Does it have advantages and disadvantages?
Plagiarism is defined as the act of appropriation of literary composition of a different author, or the ideas, passages, theories, excerpts, as original idea created by any other person as own work. It simply goes down to theft of intellectual property of another person whereby someone copies work belonging to someone else’s without acknowledging the source. In a legal sense, the work plagiarism is not recognized as legal term, but it is used in lawsuits especially in the violations of the copyright laws (legal dictionary, n.d). In this case, since some work is registered for copyright protection, plagiarism would be an act of infringing such right. From this premises, therefore, plagiarism affects property that has a legally recognized owner. For example, the author of a book, theory, music, and any other visual images have their work protected. How then does plagiarism occur? Any idea shared by mouth without any protection or patent does not comprise plagiarism. Such idea are free but can be contested on moral ground of ethics.
As stated earlier failure to acknowledge the source is plagiarism. But this is the most basic from of plagiarism that is common among students. It is imperative if a student surrenders the work as his, it is taken as plagiarized. In the event that the student put his or name, the work is plagiarized. It is worth noting that quoting the wrong author as the source is implicating the person as having plagiarized the work. In the event of a legal suit, the mistake is transferred to the writer but not the wrongful source.
In music, videos and other visuals duplication of the original work without an express permission from the owner is called pirating. Pirating is just another name of plagiarism as all involves copying work without permission from the owner. In the event that the owner authorizes the work to be duplicated, the work is no longer categorized as having been plagiarized. However, the original author must be acknowledged in all duplicates made. As described above, therefore, there are various types of plagiarism, i.e. copying the idea, word-for-word copying, plagiarism of source, and plagiarism of authorship (Brian Martin, 2004 p. 2-3).
In many occasions, it is illegal to plagiarize. However, there is more to plagiarism than just legal aspects. This is the ethical considerations of plagiarizing. In the event that one copies some else’s work, the person lack the morals of honoring the work of others. The person is simply a thief (Musau Muhammad, 2014). Many argues that plagiarism is mainly accidental than intentional. However, just as any other thief, whether accidental or not, the consequences do not stops or the application of the law is not appropriately used because of accidental wrong doing.
Accidental plagiarism is in itself lack of due diligence on the part of the convicted person and hence, the person bears the full of the actions. However, there are some instances where work is copied for non-commercial purposes are allowed. Moreover, the fair use under copy right laws allows for quoting of limited work for either parody or mimicking or satire. It is important to note that similarity in ideals and work does not act as a proof in itself of plagiarism.
Consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the nature of plagiarism. Many people get jailed for committing plagiarism acts. Other gets fired from the media and colleges while others a fined heavily. All these depend on the level of plagiarism and the arguments are presented in courts. Before these punishments are administered, plagiarism has to be checked. Plagiarism is checked using various methods. There are soft wares developed mainly for testing academic plagiarism. Most colleges have the turnitin as the main plagiarism checker since it keeps a record of all the work that is tested making it very difficult for one to submit work without detection. Others include the Duplichecker, Anti-plagiarism, PaperRater, Plagiarism Detector, Viper, Seesource, Plaquin, PlagTracker, anf plagiarism.net (Christopher Pappas, n.d).
In some case, testing plagiarism involves complex procedures of testing similarity of the produced work. For example, in scientific research, the procedures used might be subjected to scrutiny by an independent board to check the levels of plagiarism. Testing plagiarism among the student is very tiring and to some extend impractical as it involves reading the students work for at least four times in order to detect plagiarism (Brian Martin, 2004, p. 5). This is common among work that is hand delivery using print version since the soft wares cannot work unless the work is transferred to the software. It is imperative the tutors won’t read the work four times and many students may go unnoticed.
There are many ways of stopping plagiarism among the students. First the application of fines in from of grades is the most common form of punishment among students. On other levels, this may not be the same as severe punitive measures are taken as described above. Since it is difficult to test plagiarism among the students when the work is hand delivered as print, there are other was of discouraging the vice. For example, most tutors requires student to use the current occurrences as the main idea or require a direct link of the most contemporary issue. When the student is dealing with most recent issue that does not have many internet sources, the students cannot plagiarize since there would be no sufficient information to plagiarize. The tutor can also detect the plagiarism easily by mastering the little content available.
Are there any advantages of plagiarisms? Yes, there are few positive effects of plagiarism. The main one is that the student finds it easy and convenient. Almost all what students want has been done and posted somewhere on the internet where one can pick the paper or even buy it. Due to this, the student does not waste time and resources doing the work. In addition, plagiarized work may be of higher quality than those of the students. Such translates to higher grades if the plagiarism is not detected. It is important to note that it is difficulty to discover plagiarism unless the leaner is not good in paraphrasing. Disadvantages includes been unfair to the author(s), prevents learning, and can be highly punished if detected.
The tutor needs to teach the leaners the best practices in acknowledging the work of others. Paraphrasing that form the bulk of what students do need to be taught and inculcated as part of the ethics and etiquette. Changing the thinking towards plagiarism would empower the learners to ensure that all the work is well cited, not because of fearing fines, but because is a good thing to do. The use of the software brings universal treatment of the students since none would have undue advantages over the others. It is critically important to build a reputation of the college or the university such that the students take it upon themselves to stops plagiarism.
In conclusion, plagiarism is vice that ought to be discouraged all the time. Punitive measures needs to be applied across the board to ensure that authors are not disadvantaged due to plagiarism and some students do not get undue advantage over the others.
Work cited
Musau Muhammad. “Academic Plagiarism” 2014. Accessed from https://www.academia.edu/6229951/Plagirism_11 on November 30, 2014.
legal dictionary. Plagiarism. Accessed from http://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Plagirism November 30, 2014.
Brian Martin. Plagiarism: policy against cheating or policy for learning? 2004. School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication. University of Wollongong, NSW 2522. Accessed from http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/04plag.pdf November 30, 2014.
Christopher Pappas. Top 10 FREE Plagiarism Detection Tools. Accessed from http://elearningindustry.com/top-10-free-plagiarism-detection-tools-for-teachers on November 30, 2014.
