Importance of Avoiding Plagiarism - Essay Example

Importance of Avoiding Plagiarism AFFILIATION: INTRODUCTION Plagiarism is an academic offense and the activity of plagiarism should not be practiced by anyone. Plagiarism is a strong dent towards the academic integrity of an individual and it is a practice that violates the rights of others. It is important for all educational institutions to take steps and educate the students in learning how to avoid the act of plagiarism. Students should be taught the fine difference between acknowledging someone else’s work and plagiarising the work of others. Clear policies and guidelines related to avoiding plagiarism can lead the students towards writing papers and acknowledging work of other authors in the appropriate required manner (Thompson, 2006). There are many universities that have proper academic guidelines regarding rules of properly citing the sources taken from various journals, books, or websites. Higher educational studies are a very critical stage for the students and this phase is the starting point for building the career for individuals. They need to pass this phase with good grades for attaining future achievements. Due to being in such a critical stage of studies, there are many cases of plagiarism detected amongst students of higher educational studies. This paper discusses the importance of avoiding plagiarism by all individuals in the academic learning environment. IMPORTANCE OF AVOIDING PLAGIARISM The world we are residing in is the information age where the amount of information available for the general community is there in abundance and also is free of charge. It is extremely easy to plagiarise the work of others due to easy availability and accessibility of the work. There are many research papers available online for users and students who want to copy the work do it from these online sources and other research databases as well. Nonetheless, it is extremely important to avoid plagiarising the work of what other authors have done. By plagiarising, the individual is violating the legal laws of the research work or paper and also the individual is considered to be involved in unethical practices. It is highly unethical act to regard someone else’s work as one’s own. By not acknowledging the person via the right reference techniques, the individual is taking the credit of the work. Some students take the aspect of acknowledging sources is to copy paste the work of the author and then write the name of the author in brackets. This again is not the right of acknowledging anyone’s work and would be regarded as plagiarised work. There have been many research studies conducted that examine the factors of plagiarism, the perceptions of the staff and also the perceptions of the students regarding the activity of plagiarism. One such study has been conducted by Jenny Wilkinson (2009) in which the perception of the staff members and students are considered regarding plagiarism. Plagiarism is a practice that is prevailing in the higher education sector amongst the students. Many of the students don’t even realise that they are plagiarising someone else’s work. They do it unintentionally at times and then have to redo their work again when plagiarism gets detected in their papers. The attitudes of the teaching staff were examined related to plagiarism and also examined for students pursuing a degree program in the field of nursing. Wilkinson (2009) came up with the results that 49% of the teaching staff in the nursing program had stated that plagiarising was a common act and it was done by writing few paragraphs of someone’s work and not referencing it properly. In this study, it was also researched that the same thoughts were of the students but their percentage was 39%. It was further explored in the study that the staff had perceptions that students did not have a clear understanding of what plagiarism is and how it should be avoided. On the contrary, students stated that they want to have good results and hence they believed aspects such as plagiarism was a motivator in earning good grades. They stated that their work loaded instigated them towards methods of cheating (Wilkinson, 2009). Students need to be educated that under no circumstances can they take the option of conducting plagiarism, work load cannot be any reason for copying someone else’s work and stating it as one’s own. It was further revealed in the study that the warnings given to students regarding plagiarism was considered lightly by the student. If students are not even taking warnings seriously then addressing this issue would become a major challenge for educational institutions. Both the nursing staff and the students of the nursing program had overall similar thoughts about plagiarism activity but the difference were there in the seriousness of the issue considered by both parties. Students took the matter of plagiarism lightly whereas the staff took it seriously (Wilkinson, 2009). The study conducted by Roger Bennett (2005) was based upon a sample size of 249 students. The 3 attitudinal factors considered in this study was the extent to which ethical behaviour was considered by the students, the fear prevailing in students on being caught under the plagiarism activity, and lastly the fear haunting the students that they may fail in their degree program. These attitudinal factors instigated students to practice plagiarism activities. Students may avoid the act of plagiarism if they view it from the perspective of unethical behaviour. Ethical behaviour needs to be embedded in every individual and this behaviour can prevent students from plagiarising other individual’s work. Students need to be told the consequences and penalties of plagiarism being detected in the paper. This would ensure that students be extra careful in this matter and learn how to avoid plagiarism from their papers. The fear of failing the degree program can act as a tool for avoiding plagiarism and students may strive towards producing their original writing work. There were also 3 situational factors identified in this research study and they were the financial position of the student pursuing the degree program, the prior grades of the students affected the motivational level of the student in pursuing plagiarism activity, and the intensity of strictness imposed by the lecturer regarding the act of plagiarism in the work of students (Bennett, 2005). At times students are not financially stable and hence they go for such unethical activities to pass their degree programmes with good results. Another research study conducted by Flint, Clegg and Macdonald (2006) regarding the perceptions of staff about plagiarism that majority of the staff have various ways of defining plagiarism. The researchers had conducted 26 interviews amongst the various staff members and the responses received were diverse when defining plagiarism. The differences in the definitions were due to the individual experiences of the staff members regarding plagiarism. This reflects upon the fact that plagiarism is widely spread and is conducted in various ways by the students and different staff members have their own view of looking at plagiarism activity. The differences in viewpoints acted as an obstacle for devising centralised plagiarism policies for the institution. In this study it was also observed that the views of students and staff members regarding plagiarism were different from each other. This study concluded that the students need to undergo dialogue sessions with the university regarding plagiarism and need to have a clear understanding about the issues of plagiarism (Flint, Clegg and Macdonald, 2006). Through the dialogue session students can also be given a lecture on the seriousness of the issue and how grave the matter can get if students don’t avoid the act of plagiarism in their papers. CONCLUSION Plagiarism is a serious issue that is prevailing in the higher education students and it should be addressed by the educational institutions on a serious mode. Plagiarism by law is breaching of academic integrity and it is a serious offense to the academic career of the individual. It can be observed from the discussion above that some students are not aware of plagiarism rules and hence they proceed with their work without acknowledging the author. Other findings reveal, that students are under pressure for achieving good grades and hence for unethical practices of cheating and plagiarising the work of others. The staff perceptions and student perceptions regarding plagiarism is same but the students take this issue lightly and at times are not even concerned if they are allotted re-sit examinations due to plagiarism. Writing paragraphs from other individual’s work and not acknowledging them is taken very lightly by the students and this is a very alarming issue. All academic institutions need to give a thoughtful consideration in the area of plagiarism and need to have some measures such as plagiarism detection software for reviewing the work of the students and ensuring it is an original piece of work. Plagiarism is also conducted in an involuntary mode as well. At times particular sources are used by students but they forget to acknowledge the source or overlook the matter and hence under scrutiny the work is considered as plagiarised work. The academic staffs need to conduct proper workshops towards the issue of plagiarism and clearly demonstrate the reason of how plagiarism occurs and how it should be avoided. References Bennett, R., 2005. Factors associated with student plagiarism in a post-1992 university, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 30(2), pp137-162. Flint, A., Clegg, S. and Macdonald, R., 2006. Exploring Staff Perceptions of Student Plagiarism, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 30(2), pp. 145-156. Thompson, C. C., 2006. Unintended lessons: Plagiarism and the university. Teachers College Record, 108(12), 2439-2449. Wilkinson, J., 2009. Staff and Student Perceptions of Plagiarism and Cheating, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20 (2), pp 98-105. Read More