Discuss plagiarism, academic dishonesty/misconduct - Research Paper Example

The reasons for deliberate academic cheating vary. One of the major causes of this misconduct today is the over burden of assignments. Students hardly get enough time to complete numerous tasks given by their instructors. The situation compels them to rely on unethical alternatives. The rapid growth of information technology has enabled students to have rather easy way of copying. According to the findings of Sutherland (2008, p. 105), 91% of the students surveyed agree that they are using internet as a major source of material for the completion of their assignments.

Although internet is a good source of information, the over dependence leads to deliberate or inadvertent cheating. From one’s sociological imagination, the growing leniency toward plagiarism is the inevitable result of an unfair social change. Students in common consider the act as an approved misdemeanor. This careless approach toward plagiarism is visible in every sphere of academic concerns. It has been often criticized as the evidence of a deviant generation. According to Robert T S (2008, p.88), one of the reasons for this growing trend is ‘the laxity of penalties imposed by the teachers’.

Furthermore, the author finds two other reasons for this leniency. According to him, either it happens as the teachers are not fully aware of the mechanisms available to them to detect plagiarism or English being their foreign language they are not serious about plagiarism. In addition, factors including carelessness, laziness, poor time management, stress over grades, lack of knowledge, and poor language also cause plagiarism (Power, Ronald, Nuzzi, Narvaez D., Lapsley D K., Hunt T C., 2008, p.338.).

Plagiarists neither bother the effects of plagiarism on their career-dignity nor aware of its long term impacts on the culture and values of community. Furthermore, there are situations when inadvertent plagiarism occurs. It may happen if students do not know the proper rules of