Plagiarism is a misconduct in which one individual represents another individual’s ideas as his own. It is a serious folly as it violates the copyrights, intellectual property and originality of content . In my view, most of the incidents of plagiarism occur when an individual does not know what it actually means. Some others are a result of the laissez faire attitude developed by individuals towards copy-pasting content without citing the author. However, both the cases are unacceptable. When I was in high school, I faced real trouble with plagiarism. Although I was honest in quoting and paraphrasing the content, I never knew the concept of common knowledge. Due to this, I encountered issues with plagiarism by citing common knowledge and not citing the facts that were actually referenced from a book. However, I gradually overcame this challenge by gaining intellectual experience and maturity about common knowledge.
Ethical views play a major role in the practice of plagiarism . Individuals who are well aware of academic guidelines and ethics seldom engage in such practices. Most of the individuals feel that borrowing information and ideas from other sources makes a difficult assignment easier. Before entering a university, I too felt the same. However, I eventually realized that I will have to pay a higher price for compromising learning experience. I have identified confusion and improper notes taking as the major reasons that land up in plagiarism. In order to avoid plagiarism, I research the topic well in advance and think about incorporating the ideas in my assignment. I prepare a brief notes and transform it into the original assignment by interpreting the author’s ideas with my ideas. One of the best ways I have adopted to avoid plagiarism is color coding the ideas borrowed from a different source. This helps me to distinguish between a direct quote and paraphrase.
Furthermore, I sparingly use quotes and use them only when the choice of words expressed by the authors is relevant to the research. I have also learnt to use appropriate quoting mechanics to prevent plagiarism in my research. I express my understanding of the topic and supplement it with the author’s ideas. Prior to knowing about plagiarism, I failed to interpret ideas properly, which has changed after taking the class. In my opinion, there is much to know about plagiarism and it is the responsibility of colleges and universities in spreading the thoughts of plagiarism and taking it as a serious issue. In spite of having distinct measures and techniques of plagiarism, one could not prevent it unless the students learn to produce an original work without copying from the Internet . Most of the students do not consider jumbling up words as an act of plagiarism.
Reference
Gilmore, B. (2008). Plagiarism: Why it Happens, how to Prevent it. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
