How Prevalent Is Plagiarism on Campuses?
In 1999, 70 percent of students surveyed from state universities said they cheated on exams, 84 percent said they cheated on written assignments, and 52 percent said they plagiarized by copying sources without citing them. High school surveys showed similar results. Plagiarism on campus has only become more rampant over the years due to the increased availability of online sources and custom essay-writing services.
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Types
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Plagiarism on campus happens in many ways. People usually think of plagiarism as copying someone else's work without citing it. Plagiarism, however, includes a variety of more specific academic misdemeanors. Copying someone else's work word for word without citing it is a complete form of plagiarism. Students who splice sentences from various sources together, change words, paraphrase a text or reuse previous work without citing the original source of content commit partial plagiarism. Other creative and well-hidden types of plagiarism include naming a source but obscuring the citation, citing a source but leaving quotation marks out to obscure how much text was copied, and properly citing sources but neglecting to include any original material.
Causes
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Students plagiarize for various reasons. Sometimes the plagiarism is accidental, resulting from lack of knowledge and poor study skills. Usually, however, students deliberately plagiarize. Most of these students realize that it is wrong, but do it anyway out of laziness or fear of failure. A few willfully plagiarize without realizing that it is wrong because they are unfamiliar with the principles of academic integrity.
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Effects
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Plagiarism has negative effects on the individual, the student body and the educational institution. Plagiarizing does not help students in the long run. They go through their studies without mastering the material, which places them at a disadvantage in their career. They also get used to succeeding through deception and thus lose both moral integrity and trustworthiness. Plagiarism negatively affects the student body because the honest students are also placed at a disadvantage. It is unjust for them to earn through hard work what others gain by cheating. When plagiarism goes unchecked and unpunished, honest students get discouraged and may start to plagiarize as well. This has a negative impact on the educational institution, giving it a poor reputation.
Solutions
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Educational institutions should prevent plagiarism by issuing clear guidelines on academic integrity. Teachers and professors need to uphold these guidelines by being attentive. They can detect instances of plagiarism by observing students during exam periods, carefully checking written work for proper citations and using aids like plagiarism-check software or websites. When professors find that plagiarism has occurred, they must address it with the student and take disciplinary action as needed. The students should avoid plagiarism by acquainting themselves with academic integrity policies, learning how to properly cite their sources and dedicating sufficient time to their assignments.
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References
Resources
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