The term plagiarism from the definition’s point of view means the wrongful, deliberate and intentional publication or use of someone else work, piece of writing, words, thought, ideas, language and even the expressions and presentation as one’s own original work. It is said to be an academic cheating and a break of the editorial honesties. Plagiarism has been considered a common practice among the growing generation and has mostly increased due to the rise of technology and increasing number of internet search engines like Google, Bing, yahoo, Gmail, eBay and even amazon.com. Wikipedia, one of the search engines, has been considered useful in producing replicate of documents and articles previously written and edited by other writers. The largest group of persons affected by this unlawful act of duplicating documents is the school going students, professors or researchers.
A copy pasted work, writing, article, document or language is easily identified since it will always contain information or wordings similar to that on the original documents. And it necessarily does not mean that for a document to be said to be copied it must be from the whole original document, even just some three to four wordings, statements or expressions that appear similar indicate plagiarism. The only recognized and lawful way of copy pasting and using someone else wording or writing is by including a citation immediately after the copied statements or words.
Plagiarism is never considered a crime but in the field of academics and music or editing industries it is a serious ethical offence and can lead to copyright infringement. It is then described as academic fraud and victims are subjected to academic disapproval up to and including expulsion from the school, department, organization or company. Plagiarism as in the field of journalism is considered a breach of the journalistic ethics and reporters got plagiarizing information risk facing disciplinary action ranging from suspension to the extent of job termination. From the legal aspect point of view, it is only logical for an individual, group or organization giving credit to someone else writing but not copy it and presenting it as their own.
Plagiarism is also considered a moral offence against the plagiarist’s audience for instance the teachers, students, reader or even the listeners and not forgetting anyone who played the role in providing benefit in exchange for what was initially intended to be the original content for example the teacher, employer or the plagiarist’s editor. As much as they may defend themselves that they did the practice unintentionally by failing to include quotations or providing appropriate citations. Whereas plagiarism in learning and journalism has a long history, the growth of the internet and the increasing search engines, where many articles and writings appear as automated texts, has made the usual act of copy pasting work easier.
For researchers and professors, plagiarism is punishable by imposing them to sanctions ranging from suspension, dissolution of job and even the loss of credibility and apparent integrity. Charges of this unlawful act against students and lecturers are normally heard by the institutions’ disciplinary committees, by which both of them had agreed upon.
Released statistics have then shown that plagiarism has grown to be a serious and uncontrollable problem and therefore important concern and serious cause for worries for the learners. For instance, a research carried out by alc Gutterman showed that almost seventy thousand documents and abstracts appeared similar to other already published works and articles when scanned by such programs. This is despite the common knowledge that this act is unlawful, unethical, wrongful, immoral, offensive and even unfair to the sincere authors who take the greatest part of their time, energy and resources researching and putting down their sole ideas only for the plagiarists steal and run away with them for their own praise and financial, emotional or social benefits. Furthermore it is so painful and hearting to see you’re sweated for work written and published under someone else name. This act demoralizes the original authors and in some stages lowers their self-esteem making them stop or reduce the number of publications or articles they were producing.
Many factors promote, contribute to and allow plagiarism among several people including students. Some of the factors relate both the teachers in case of primary and secondary schools and lecturers in case of universities and the students, if they are really the affected victims. This occurs for instance when the lecturers/teachers issue the students with assignments or exams before thorough teaching/lecturing them. This makes the students to panic due to fear of failing and the end result is always copy pasting from other individuals or directly from the internet sources.
Another possible solution to this problem is inculcating in students and academic instructors alike, virtues and personal values such as honesty and integrity. This in consequence builds or boosts their self-esteem and feeling of self-worth. The Council of Writing Program Administrators, acknowledges the role played by the teachers and instructors in curbing the vice by emphasising the need for students and other learners to live up to their responsibility to behave ethically and honestly as such students or learners. The paper further contends that teachers and instructors can unknowingly encourage or discourage plagiarism not just by policy and admonition, but also in the way they structure or organize assignments. Further, students and instructors should openly talk about the underlying implications of plagiarism and to understand that challenging the works of others rather than copying makes them good and responsible citizens.
The acts of plagiarism amounts to violation of someone’s intellectual property rights and the offenders, therefore, risk sanctions or damages in law. Though scholarly plagiarism is rarely punishable, however, prohibited in law and any violation is punishable in many jurisdictions worldwide . The inclusion of such protection in law is, evidently, an acknowledgement of the significance of creativity and originality of thoughts, ideas and expressions. It seeks to reward those who care or dare to think while banishing and punishing opportunists whose ultimate intentions are to unfairly benefit from the creations of others-thus reap where they did not sow.
Some of them even don’t take it as their responsibility to edit the copied works or even include proper quotations or citations in case it was a document to be published for public use. Another case is whenever the teacher/lecturer issues the students with class assignments or exams and leaves them on their own to carry out the exercise without strict supervision. The teacher/lecturer may also give the students homework and assign to them duration of almost a week, for any normal person it would be logical to look for reference but the unlawful act comes in whenever the students forget or intentionally fail to cite or quote any directly copied work, document, language or expressions.
Disciplinary action can also be taken against those who perpetuate the practice. Many institutions have clearly defined procedures for pursuing claims of academic dishonesty. The Council of Writing Program Administrators contends that a lot of care should, however, be taken in punishing offenders with expulsion of the student being the most drastic and severe to probation being the lightest. This paper is however of the view that due to the rather negative impact of plagiarism both to the plagiarist and the source, full course of the law should issue on the offenders as light penalties for the same would only serve as an incentive and not a deterrent as should be the case. Cases of professors being stripped of their doctorates, undergraduates their bachelors and students being expelled on account of plagiarism are a clear manifestation of how serious some jurisdictions including France have taken up the matter-copying or messing someone’s work amounts to clipping or holding the hands that feed them; it is akin to destroying their tools of trade.
As indicated by the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ report of the year 2013, repeated by Donald Gotterbarn, John Impagliazzo and Keith Miller in their written article relating to Plagiarism and Academic Publications: A proper analysis of the documents and confirmation of the related Information to Literacy Competency Standards for the Advanced Education, poor time organizational skills in the students and their lack of efforts and energy in carrying out appropriate research mainly based in writing is also considered as a major concern to authors and lecturers or teachers. Due to that kind of weakness, the students believe that, though mistakenly, so that they have no option but to knowingly copy someone else work, writing or ideas without recognizing, identifying or giving credit to the copied source.
The teachers and instructors have been said to be reluctant in fitting out this unlawful act by failing to report cases of such cheating whenever they occur, or they may not impose the preferred penalties. This in effect strengthens the misplaced belief of students or learners that the practice is acceptable and certain. Even in situations where candidates attempt to identify the source of their writings or documents. They do so mistakenly or maybe in a misleading way. This in my own view could possibly so thanks to poor training on the means of syncing the students ideas, reflections, thoughts and explanations with those of the copied sources to the level of foreign phrases and ideas are easily noticeable as they appear misplaced.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the issue of plagiarism is a major concern in the education sector and should be addressed by all the stakeholders ranging from teachers, parents and even the students who might be tempted to practice the vice. The act may cost an individual dearly if ignored at any given time. Parents should not just be pertained about the kind of grades their children get while in school or colleges, they should be more concerned with whether their children get the better understanding of the concepts and can critically analyze information however simple it could be. This will help curb the menace and help them gain more understanding of what they are learning while in class.
Works Cited
America Library Association. "Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education." The Association of College and Research Libraries (2000).
Council of Writing Program Administrators. "WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition." Council of Writing Program Administrators (2013).
Follette, Marcel C. Stealing Into Print: Fraud, Plagarism, and Misconduct in Scientific Publishing. Illustrated. California: University of California Press, 2004.
Lathrop, Ann and Kathleen Foss. Guiding Students from Cheating And Plagiarism to Honesty And Integrity: Strategies for Change. Illustrated. Santa Barbara: Libraries Unlimited,, 2005.
Williams, Heidi. Plagiarism. Illustrated. Chicago: Greenhaven Press, 2008.
