During week eleven we were been lectured by Dr. Fousy and Miss. Vino on contemporary issue part three. As usual it was a very interesting topic and we had interesting discussion regarding all these topics. Here I chose plagiarism to share my thoughts on. Plagiarism has become one of the important issues in this 21 century. Plagiarism is not only done by student in school but it is done everywhere. Like in business, film, mobile company, advertisement and so on. Plagiarism has become a major epidemic in universities.
Not only do we see it in Colleges and universities but among students of higher education, we also see it in high schools and now it is trickling down to our middle school children. Plagiarism can be material copied word for word from books, journals, internet sites, professor’s course notes, etc. It could be material that is paraphrased but closely resembles the original source. example in a recent article published by the Centre for Academic Integrity (CAI), Professor Don McCabe claims that “On most campuses, 70% of students admit to some cheating” while “Internet plagiarism is a growing concern” because although only “10% of students admitted to engaging in such behaviour in 1999, almost 40%” admitted to it in 2005″ (CAI 2005).
If we look towards the root cause of plagiarism among students ; as being a student main reason that I think is due to the laziness of students that they do not want to think critically, another cause could be students fail to utilize their time and at last moment they do plagiarism to finished their assignments. Lastly could be due to high expectation of teachers from their students may lead to plagiarism what I mean here is that some teachers looks for professional assignments and bombastic words in their task and they ignore students original skills specially he/she is not so good in writing skills all though he/she is good in thinking sill. So, in order to fulfil the high satisfaction level of teachers may lead to plagiarism.
Plagiarism is an unethical issue among university students because it makes the students to depend on others work, students do not learn anything and students are not making use of their knowledge. These three reasons could be the most important to be concerned why it is unethical? Firstly, it is unethical because it is a form of theft. By taking the ideas and words of others and pretending they are your own, you are stealing someone else’s intellectual property, secondly it is unethical because the plagiarizer subsequently benefits from this theft and thirdly, a degree is evidence of its holder’s abilities and knowledge. If a student gains employment on the basis of a qualification they have not earned, they may be a risk to others.
Knowing that plagiarism is unethical and also it has been troubling teachers and research supervisors since long. It is also well known fact that plagiarism is a problem that can be reduced but never be fully prevented. The invention of internet has further assisted the plagiarizers. Texts on the web have premium access to everybody and they do not have to bother turning the pages of books. Many students even have their assignments written by others. However, Universities, as best institutions in society, have a moral obligation to stop the rot. There should be a strict policy applicable to all the students in the university. Moreover, all teachers should give more priority to the student’s original skills though it does not sound highly professional and also teachers should never criticize writing skills of poor students that may lead to do plagiarism in order to fulfil the satisfaction level of particular teachers.
Students must be aware that even if they lift up a single sentence without acknowledging the source, this is plagiarism.
Therefore, it is risky for the students to do plagiarism because they will not learn anything and it won’t help them in their future. So, it is better not to take risk of your future and you do your work by yourself without plagiarizing but using your full skill and level best effort while doing your task that would give you satisfaction with real value of wisdom.
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