An Essay on “Discuss the Problems of Plagiarism in Today’s Universities”

An Essay on “Discuss the problems of plagiarism in today’s universities”

Many studies and evidences had already proved that students’ cheating is much more famous as well as today’s biggest problem in academic field. In recent years, a large group of students rely on the development of technology and availability of online resources. Instead of thinking critically and analyzing the subject matter to get conclusion they depend on online resources to use it on a wrong way, which is known as plagiarism. The word ‘Plagiarism’ has became a serious topic to discuss for higher education in this era. It is an academic dishonesty which is followed by many students who are unaware of academic ethics.

If plagiarism is a serious problem then what does it mean? Cameron (2008) stated that “plagiarism is dishonesty of worst kind: it is stealing other people’s thoughts and ideas”. Similarly, Easterby-Smith et al. (2008:50) cited in Saunders et al. (2008) defines plagiarism as presenting the work and ideas of other people and passing them off as your own, without acknowledging the original source of the idea used. Thus it can be explained as receiving an ownership on someone’s work without their permission and without giving any credit to them intentionally or unintentionally.

Kroger (2010) explains that a special plagiarism sub-set, or at least very much related, is ‘recycling’ or self-plagiarism. However, this term is illogical because plagiarism means to take something from others. This type of plagiarism is generally practiced by a student to submit the same assignment in different courses.

Most of the students run through plagiarism intentionally but some of them follow it unintentionally. On both ways plagiarism is punishable. Sometimes because of lack of appropriate knowledge about plagiarism students might be plagiarised. Thus there should be explicit discussion about the meaning and conditions for the plagiarism in different circumstances inside the classroom. Generally, there are four common forms of plagiarism:
• If any student steals material from another source and submit it as his/her own.
• If he/ she submit assignment prepared by other like friend or relatives etc as own.
• If any student paraphrase material from any source without proper documentation.
• If student paraphrase material from other source with proper documentation but leaving quotation mark.

These students prefer to copy and paste the ideas and words of other people without providing any credit. They never try to read these sources properly and understand which has been decreasing the strength of people’s brains. University of Michigan (2006) states that “plagiarism; falsification of data and fabrication has tainted the reputations of individuals, institutions and professions as a whole.”

As the problem always occurs with the solution, this problem in universities can also be minimized by the use of technology. Now days there are latest software to detect the plagiarism but elimination of plagiarism by detection is impossible. The main proposal here is not to detect the plagiarism and punish the guilty but to create a healthy educational environment where it seems to be rare and to develop a culture of respect on the qualitative work. So any academic institutions must develop clear and well publicised policies which can explain plagiarism in practice rather than to say Do not Plagiarise.

References Cameron, S (2008) The Business Student’s Handbook ; Learning Skills For Study and Employment 4th edn. pp- 185 Pearson education Kroger, M (2010) ‘Some thought on plagiarism’ Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety 9 (3) pp. 259-260. Saunders, M, Lewis, P and Thornhill, A (2008) Research Methods for Business Students: Plagiarism, 5th edn. pp. 97 Pearson Education Pearson Education ISBN: 9780273716860, 0273716867 University of Michigan (2006) ‘Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies In Plagiarism, Fabrication And Falsification’ [online] Available at http://www.plagiary.org/ [Accessed on 13th March,2011 at 01:54]

References: Cameron, S (2008) The Business Student’s Handbook ; Learning Skills For Study and Employment 4th edn. pp- 185 Pearson education Kroger, M (2010) ‘Some thought on plagiarism’ Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety 9 (3) pp. 259-260. Saunders, M, Lewis, P and Thornhill, A (2008) Research Methods for Business Students: Plagiarism, 5th edn. pp. 97 Pearson Education Pearson Education ISBN: 9780273716860, 0273716867 University of Michigan (2006) ‘Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies In Plagiarism, Fabrication And Falsification’ [online] Available at http://www.plagiary.org/ [Accessed on 13th March,2011 at 01:54]