Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Avoid It

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Abstract

Even though the issue of plagiarism dates back to over a thousand years ago, nowadays, it is more relevant than ever. This paper discusses the notion of plagiarism. Firstly, the definition of plagiarism is introduced. Then, the historical trends are covered. The different types of academic plagiarism are then discussed, both intentional and unintentional, including copy-pasting, switching words and direct quotation, plagiarizing a style, and plagiarizing an idea. Causes of plagiarism are then discussed as well as the preventive measures currently in place. The focus is then shifted to the future of plagiarism in contemporary society and the effect of information technologies. Finally, conclusions based on the research conducted are made and solutions are proposed.

Introduction

A great variety of issues in the academic sphere are connected with the act of plagiarism, which has gained popularity among high school and college students. To understand the nature of plagiarism, one should accurately define the term. According to Peter Ashworth, Madeleine Freewood, and Ranald Macdonald (2003) plagiarism refers to any act of unauthorized use of the original words or language of the author, which another person presents as his/her writing. Plagiarism is widespread not only in academic establishments but also can be easily traced in journalism or on the Internet. The majority of concerns regard the existence of plagiarism in the sphere of education since students should learn how to express their own opinions instead of simply copying or imitating thoughts. So, a well-planned strategy of measures of gradual plagiarism abolishment among students should be developed and successfully implemented. This paper will concentrate on the history of plagiarism deeply rooted in many spheres of creative work. Having discussed historical perspective, explicit instances of plagiarism will be covered including copy-pasting material directly, switching words, plagiarizing an idea, and plagiarizing a style. Statistical facts and general trends will then be identified. Later the focus will be switched to causes of that sort of stealing such as teaching techniques that should be used by teachers in class, anti-plagiarism software tools, Freedman’s New Paradigm. As part of the causes, the effectiveness of punishment as a preventive measure will be assessed. Finally, conclusions will be made based on the research conducted; suggestions for future research will follow.

Plagiarism: Historic Perspective

Plagiarism was not founded by modern students, but its roots go deep in the history of literature. The word plagiarism itself comes from the Latin word “plagiare” with its original meaning “to abduct” or even “to kidnap” and this word first appeared in the English language back in the sixteenth century. The expropriation of the work of another person and presentation of it like your own is a bright violation of the ethic of society(Kaplan, Louis, 1995). It undermines the historical inquiry. But it is a rather surprising fact, that even Shakespeare was accused of stealing his great plots from Holinshed, another medieval philosopher, and writer. Such reputable and well-known literature representatives, as Samuel Coleridge and Laurence Sterne, committed shameful acts of plagiarism. As history evolves, the instances of plagiarism became significantly more frequent and more sophisticated.

Today, with the development of mass media, plagiarism boundaries have significantly expanded. A rather ironic, but truthful article “Plagiarize, Plagiarize Plagiarize, Only Be Sure to Always Call It Research” describes different cases of plagiarism in the history of journalism, focusing on the consequences of the act of stealing authors’ works and ideas: “To be sure, most writers and editors still regard plagiarism as a journalistic evil — the profession’s cardinal sin. […] Punishment is uneven, ranging from severe to virtually nothing even for major offenses.” (Lieberman, 1995, p.21) Even though the instances of plagiarism should have decreased over time with the invention of tools aiding in the war on plagiarism, e.g. TurnItIn, Eve, the situation became even more complex with no standardized punishment and effective legal base in effect, as noted by Lieberman (1995). According to statistical data presented by iParadigms, a software company that developed the TurnItIn program, an anti-plagiarism tool widely accepted in academic circles, as much as 97,5% of students are allowed to copy their work in 1989, as compared with only 58,3% in 1969 (2007). The stated above statistical trend is very representative in terms of the general trend identified by Lieberman (1995).

Instances of Academic Plagiarism

Plagiarism can take many forms, becoming more popular and widely spread virtually in every kind of creative work. The most common types of academic plagiarism include Copy and Paste, World Switch, Idea Plagiarism, and Style Plagiarism.

Copy-Pasting

Copy-pasting occurs when a person picks up a sentence or a significant phrase from a source without using quotation marks, without reference to the source. A lot of famous works were violently plagiarized by those who do not care about somebody’s rights. By those whose shame does not come between them and ethnic borders, between stealing and bringing something absolutely new in science, art, or any other field of study.

Whether the whole passage is copied or only a phrase of an author is given out as students’ own words, this instance of plagiarism would still be direct copy-pasting of material.

The reason why copy-pasting became so popular is directly related to the ease of availability of information online that could have been passed out by students as their own work. Many studies conducted among students confirm that the availability of Internet and research material in the digital form directly stimulated academic plagiarism. Furthermore, the very concept of copy-pasting is oftentimes referred to as electronic plagiarism primarily for the reason why it occurs.

It should be noted, that the instances of direct copy-pasting are becoming less popular among students since a number of anti-plagiarism software tools have been developed and successfully put into practice in academic institutions. As such, even though direct copy-pasting is one of the violent forms of plagiarism, it is getting less popular.

Switching Words: Direct Quote

To make correctly quoting a sentence, a person needs to put it in quotation marks, cite the author and the name of the work. Citing the Source articles should be done only if it is particularly useful in making the point in the quote and the whole work. There are a lot of cases when the quotation is not needed or is not useful at all.

Correct citing of the quotation marks is a very important part of the work. Commas and periods must be placed inside, not outside of quotation marks. All other punctuation must be placed outside quotation marks and only if the original source is contained within it, put inside. Even if a comma is not a part of the original quotation, the stated above practice must be followed. Furthermore, it is a general rule to place commas and periods inside the quotation mark, whereas other punctuation including question marks, exclamation points, colons, semicolons should be placed outside of the quotation itself.

Single quotation marks must be used if the inside of a long quote appears a shorter one. Internal quotation inside of quotation mark helps the reader to distinguish the internal quote in the material surrounding it. A reader also determines from which source a single marked internal quote was drawn.

Both sorts of quotation marks, single and double, need to be used when in the cited source the entire quote has been repeated. Actually, to minimize the possibility of plagiarism by citing the original source, one should ensure that:

authority is used effectively;
the original source is read by a writer.

It should be further noted, that the very meaning of a sentence can be altered by effective usage of punctuation when citing information directly. But the writer must never forget that he is the only one to decide which way to use and understand how important it is to cite information correctly considering the possibility of plagiarism.

To synthesize the expression of ideas in the source article can be enough to make the work. Still, many students are seeking the easy way out by inserting long quotations in the body of work to increase the number of words oftentimes at cost for the quality of the work itself (Mcleod, Kembrew, 2001).

Plagiarizing an Idea

Every writer must be aware that reproducing or publishing words of another person without acknowledging the words is plagiarism. But the instance of plagiarism applies not to the published word only, but also to many unpublished materials, pictures, graphs, spoken words, opinions, ideas. Plagiarism can occur any time when somebody’s material is being used, regardless of the material of the original source. The collective work of students can be a bright example of a situation when unintentional plagiarism occurs. During the collaboration, when many students working in one team are using ideas and materials of others, credit must be given to the original authors when the work itself is submitted. When the fact of incorporated work in the final product is not properly acknowledged person is guilty of plagiarism.

In many famous cases, the misappropriation of an idea of other person is a subtle process. Consider the case of Albert Schatz, a graduated student working at Rutgers under Selman Waksman. Schatz discovered an antibiotic named streptomycin. Even though the first publications of his work identified Schatz as the primary author, it was Waksman who began to take credit, over some time, for the discovery earning him in 1952 a Nobel prize.

A lot of dissertations, theses, and other long-term papers are required to be completed by students. As long as professionals submit articles to publishers, there will continuously be incidents of plagiarism. However, in mid -80s, in courts in the USA was a significant increase in the amount of litigation. In 1978, Alsbte, a student from Massachusetts, revoked the license of the physician to practice medicine to earn his M.D. degree. He committed four acts of plagiarism by stealing the ideas from the articles published earlier. The Board of Registration in Medicine founded in 1988 called that “lack of good moral character which is required to practice medicine.” The Supreme Court of Massachusetts affirmed this revocation (Barry, 2006, p. 377).

But actually, the situation is much worse than it was reported. Later Alsbte has reported that he had plagiarized more than sixty articles to claim both of his degrees and PH.D., none of which he had earned.

“Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit, including those
obtained through confidential review of others’ research proposals and manuscripts,” (Bolkan, 2006, p. 10).

Plagiarizing a Style

Even the style of writing itself can be subject to plagiarism. Even though a writing style is not protected under a general Copyright Law, plagiarizing a writing style is still considered a crime in academic circles. Style plagiarism occurs primarily because searching for own particular style is a long-lasting and difficult process. Give it is hard to get, the style becomes a real value for each writer. A style is determined by a few factors:

the writers’ selection of words;
the different ways those words can be arranged ( in paragraphs, sentences) to create meaning;
the assumptions of the writer about who is to read his or her work;
the conventions appropriate to the context, the writer is working in(Timothy J., and Bennett L. Schwartz, 2002).

This type of plagiarism is difficult to be detected; instead, style plagiarism oftentimes remains unnoticed. Still, plagiarizing a style remains an offense for students, being one of the types of plagiarism.

Plagiarism: Statistical Facts

To realize the scope of the issue of plagiarism, it is necessary to research the statistics on this problem. Unfortunately, the studies of various educational establishments remain rather sad: the Center for Academic Integrity reported that over 80% of students admitted that they have cheated at least once in 1986; a survey of the Psychological Record has shown that almost 36 % of college students said that they had plagiarized works of different authors (Lieberman, 1995). However, a much more serious issue is that almost all students believe that cheating is rarely noticed or that students that plagiarize rarely get punished. Consequently, students live in an environment where plagiarism and cheating are blooming, that is why when they have a choice of plagiarizing or not most of them see nothing significantly wrong in copying someone’s work or at least imitating it.

Until the issue of plagiarism is accurately addressed, the statistics will remain the same: 54% of students at least once plagiarized from the internet, 74% of students cheated, and 47% of them are convinced that some teachers ignore students’ cheating or plagiarism (iParadigms, 2007). According to the study conducted by Gallup Organization in 2000, the two major problems that society faces in the present day are lack of education and a decline in ethics (iParadigms, 2007). Given the issue of plagiarism became even more widespread with the availability of information in digital form, when combined with the general decline in ethics, the scope of the problem is even more impressive.

Causes of Plagiarism

Representatives from the academic sphere can not fully understand the nature of plagiarism unless they ascertain the most significant causes of this act and students’ understanding of plagiarism.

As it was mentioned earlier, plagiarism was evolving and expanding together with innovations in computer technologies and science. However, these factors should not be considered as the actual causes of plagiarism, since they only set a convenient environment for students who can easily take advantage of these techniques. So, one can conclude that problem of plagiarism lies in how students perceive this process: whether it is ethical for them and how common it is among their peers( Macfarlane, Bruce, 2004). Moreover, many students tend to set certain priorities on the necessity of certain courses, and those who seem to be of less importance for them are more likely to be cheated on. Sometimes the process of cheating or plagiarizing is connected with the rebellion of students against unjust assessment criteria set by the teacher: students are not willing to spend their time on the assignment which will be graded with no regard for their efforts.

According to the studies of Ashworth and Bannister reflected in the article “The Student Lifeworld and the Meanings of Plagiarism”, there is one more students’ justification for plagiarizing: “General discontent with how students perceived themselves to be regarded by academic staff was not only due to large classes and lack of faculty-student contact. Tasks which did not engage the student also conveyed the impression of staff disrespect,” (Ashworth, Free wood, Macdonald, 2003, p.257). So, the less time teacher spends working with each student individually, the less attention and respect student will pay to this particular course or subject.

As such, the reasons for plagiarism are multiple and oftentimes cannot be identified separately. Instead, some factors intervene convenient environment established by digital information, heavy workload and peer pressure, inability to set priorities and lack of motivation, the inability of government and educational system address the issue of plagiarism.

Measures against Plagiarism

Given the issue of plagiarism dates back to centuries ago, there are numerous recommendations for improving educational processes and taking measures against plagiarism. To apply these recommendations successfully, it is important to outline the most practical and useful ones.

A. Freedman’s New Paradigm: Michael Freedman, an assistant professor at Fordham University in New York, believes that the educational system should be adopted for the New Information Age. His theory of a new paradigm lies in the idea that students should learn how to work with multiple resources in the libraries and Internet and select the most appropriate for their assignments. Freedman is convinced that students do not need to write their works, but know how to work with useful information. “Prevention, not detection, is at the heart of the new paradigm for combating plagiarism,”- these words best sum up Freedman’s position on the issue of plagiarism (Freedman, 2004, p. 545).

The theory proposed by Freedman is centered on the students’ learning process rather than on ethical concerns. Even though these measures will be effective to some degree, one should concentrate on the fact that students often acknowledge what they are doing. As such, the issue is more ethical.

Teaching Techniques of Accurate Citing

This measure anticipates setting the system of seminars and lectures on the consequences of plagiarism, as well as the appropriate style of citing required in every case when the author’s ideas are presented. According to Elaine Barry (2006), the majority of college undergraduates do not have a sufficient amount of knowledge on the accurate citing of secondary sources. However, it was outlined that students have significantly improved their performance after they received instructions on the correct usage of citing styles. As such, teachers should start their courses with lectures on plagiarism and citation styles, so that students would be aware of teachers’ requirements from the very beginning of the course.

However, teaching students the techniques of accurate citation is not enough to diminish the level of plagiarism. It is necessary to look deeper into the origin of plagiarism – in most cases, students take advantage of plagiarism because of their lack of confidence in their writing skills, their personal ethics, as well as the lack of interest in learning more about a certain topic. So, it is necessary to work out a system of measures, which would include lectures on plagiarism and students’ ethics, courses on improving students’ writing and researching skills.

Anti-Plagiarism Software

The Information Age has not only led to the expansion of plagiarism in the world but has brought new powerful tools of struggle against the “evil of the twenty-first century”. The list of anti-software programs is rather long and includes the following innovative techniques: Glatt Plagiarism Screening Program, Essay Verification Engine, Plagiserve, Turnitin.com, or even Google. Turnitin is one of the best examples of programs that help educators identify plagiarism and conduct a much more just assessment of students’ works. Article “Using the Google Search Engine to Detect Word-for-Word Plagiarism in Master’s Theses: A Preliminary Study” by Melissa Holmberg and Mark McCullough describes the process of ascertaining the act of plagiarism:

“Plagiarism detection services typically require student papers to be submitted to professors in electronic format. Professors then submit the papers to the software company which runs the paper against its own database of online resources. The professor then receives reports from the company detailing which papers appear to contain plagiarism.” (2005, p.435).

The problem of using anti-software programs lies in their high cost, so many universities and high schools choose not to pay for the expensive process of plagiarism identification. Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem – Google Search engine, which is a free and rather fast tool against plagiarism. To prove the efficiency of Google, some fact can be presented: over 200 electronic works were examined by Google, the average time for ascertaining the percentage of plagiarized words was approximately 4 minutes, and as a result, 27% of works contained rather a high level of plagiarized or imitated phrases. This survey shows the importance of running students’ works through anti-plagiarism software and punishing those students who choose the easy way of plagiarizing someone’s works (Holmberg, McCullough, 2005, p.435).

Punishment as a Preventive Measure against Plagiarism

The majority of students commit the act of plagiarizing not realizing that it is a crime (in educational terms). Consequently, they can be severely punished if caught plagiarizing. Most university and high schools have similar policies regarding plagiarism suspensions or Fs for the assignment, or even the entire course. In some reputable educational establishments, like Yale or Harvard, students are punished for plagiarism much more severely- with a two-semester suspension, or even dismissal from the institution in some cases.

“It is impractical, if not impossible to have an effective punitive policy in place without strong deterrence and detection policies. Furthermore, without a policy in place, deterrence is not as effective, and detection is unlikely to be a priority,”- according to the article “Avoid the Plague: Tips and Tricks for Preventing and Detecting Plagiarism”, elaborate policy against plagiarism is the best tool for preventing this shameful act (Bolkan, 2006, p. 10).

So, every educational establishment should work out a section that would deal with the issue of plagiarism, measures to prevent it, and punishment for breaking the anti-plagiarism policy. To make this policy more effective, it would be appropriate to involve students in the process of setting certain rules, as well as punishment measures, so that students are well aware of the university’s policy.

Future of Plagiarism: World Wide Web

The problem of plagiarism in recent years is a topic of escalating concern. Oftentimes the problem is compound with diversity across many different disciplines. Recent studies and policies are primarily centered on the reduction of instances of plagiarism. By creating new strategies for detecting plagiarism, policies in place stimulate students to produce their own original work. In May 2006 in Sheffield took place a forum led by Engineering Subject Center on which a great number of students’ works were presented aiming at reflecting the problem and elimination of plagiarism. Among these works, there were a lot of appropriate techniques and software, approaching to detection of plagiarism and strategies for addressing the issues. The selection of disciplines such as engineering and others is helping to reinforce and provide the best weapon in the war against plagiarism.

The rise of technologies and the internet decline student writing. Selling term works on the internet became a regular practice and that encourages many students to commit a crime named plagiarism. When all people on the World Wide.

We are going to treat plagiarism the way it deserves to be treated, only then humanity will have a chance to defeat plagiarism. Until that time, they’re always will be people without honor and dignity violently stealing others’ ideas and works.

Conclusion

“Although it is difficult to accurately gauge just how pervasive plagiarism is and whether the Internet has made the problem worse, as more than one wag has noted, it is the unoriginal sin. Eradicating cheating isn’t likely to ever be accomplished, but some tools and techniques can help keep the educational environment much more honest,”- these words best sum up the issue of plagiarism, as one of the most common types of cheating (Bolkan, 2006, p. 10).

Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone’s writing or thoughts, so it can not be viewed from any positive perspective, just as any other type of crime. The origin of plagiarism is so old that it seems impossible to abolish it completely, so educators should strive to implement new measures to fight its further development. In this paper, we have examined in detail the issue of plagiarism including causes and preventive measures as well as prospects for the future; still, a lot is left for further research. As evident from the research above, there are multiple causes of plagiarism as well as proposed courses of action that should be taken to address them. As such, future research should be centered on determining the major problem of plagiarism – whether it is a lack of education or, instead, knowledgeable unethical acts, as different policies aimed at fighting plagiarism can be adopted to address the issue.

Works Cited

Ashworth, Peter, Madeleine Freewood, and Ranald Macdonald. “The Student Lifeworld and the Meanings of Plagiarism.” Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 34.2 (2003): 257.

Barry, Elaine S. “Can Paraphrasing Practice Help Students Define Plagiarism?” College Student Journal 40.2 (2006): 377.

Bolkan, J.V. “Avoid the Plague: Tips and Tricks for Preventing and Detecting Plagiarism.” Learning & Leading with Technology. 2006: 10.

Freedman, Michael P. “A Tale of Plagiarism and a New Paradigm.” Phi Delta Kappan 85.7 (2004): 545.

Kaplan, Louis. Laszlao Moholy-Nagy: Biographical Writings. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.

Lieberman, Trudy. “Plagiarize, Plagiarize Plagiarize, Only Be Sure to Always Call It Research.” Columbia Journalism Review. 1995: 21.

McCullough, Mark, and Melissa Holmberg. “Using the Google Search Engine to Detect Word-for-Word Plagiarism in Master’s Theses: A Preliminary Study.” College Student Journal 39.3 (2005): 435.

Macfarlane, Bruce. Teaching with Integrity: The Ethics of Higher Education Practice. London: Routledge Falmer, 2004.

Mcleod, Kembrew. Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual Property Law. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.

Perfect, Timothy J., and Bennett L. Schwartz, eds. Applied Metacognition. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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