An Analysis on Plagiarism

What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is best explained as the act of claiming or implying authorship over another person's written or creative work (in part or whole), without adequately acknowledgment [1]. For example, a student uses a piece of work from a book without acknowledging the author of the book or the name of the book. In simple words, plagiarism is just unfair copying.

Comparison of Plagiarism and Copyright Infringment

Plagiarism is associated more with the associated reputation of the work as compared to copyright infringement which is actually more related to the violation of the copyright holders rights to use the material [1]. Although overlapping to an extent, they are not exactly the same.

For example, a copyright infringement can be done while giving credit to the owner (or creator) of the copyright, but without the consent of the copyright owner to use his work. In such a case, while the copyright infringement still stands, it is possible that plagiarism would not have been conducted. If however, the work of the copyright owner is used without even recognizing the copyright owner, then it would be case of plagiarism.

What makes plagiarism so wrong?

Apart from being an act of cheating, the act of plagiarism eventually does lead to more disadvantages. A major consequence of plagiarism is lack of original thinking and development. If plagiarism is done to a large extent, then there wouldn't be any new developments due to just recycling of old content. Another problem associated with plagiarism is that there would not be any content correction. If material is copied blindly over and over again, then even the silliest of fallacies could become facts. This in turn would result in the downturn of human society as a whole, and therefore, plagiarism needs to be reviewed as a serious offence.

How is plagiarism done?

A person may perform the act of plagiarism if he/she intentionally or unintentionally does any of the following [2]:
a. submit another person's work while claiming that it is his own
b. using words, or ideas from someone else without giving sufficient acknowledgement to the original creator
c. failing to put quotation marks while quoting
d. simply changing words is not sufficient, even sentence structure must be changed; if this is not done, it could be counted as an act of plagiarism
e. copying a majority of the work of someone else even if you give adequate credit.

Where is plagiarism commonly seen?

The act of plagiarism is most commonly observed in the following:

a. Academia: Students are under a lot of pressure to submit assignments. Due to this pressure, most students end up copying substantial amounts of content off other authors. This has been facilitated over the recent times by the advancements in technology and the internet, which allows for simple copying of the content. Detection of plagiarism among students can be easy by a simple 4 step process [1]-
1. An instructor could obtain a popular piece of information from a number of students to whom the assignment would have been given. For e.g. a number of students who would search the internet could get information off a popular information website such as Wikipedia, and copy it without giving due credit.
2. An instructor could take care and notice whether the student has actually used words which are commonly used by the student.
3. An instructor could find incorrect information within the assignment (although this is not a sure test, the chances of plagiarism in such a condition are high)
4. The instructor may ask the students to submit their assignments to an online plagiarism detector, which would screen the assignment for plagiarism prior to being reviewed by the instructor [3]. A good online plagiarism detector such as Turnitin (http://www.turnitin.com) can be extremely helpful for detecting any plagiarism.

It has been observed that most of the acts of plagiarism have been observed at higher levels of education [4]. Students at the high school level often do not need to resort to plagiarized material. However, as the student advances into higher levels of studies, due to additional pressure and increased work load, a student could resort to plagiarism.
Plagiarism in academics is a serious offence in developed countries such as U.K. and U.S.A. In such countries, the act of plagiarism is severely punished by the academic institute itself such as revoking degrees or awards as a penalty [1]. However, in countries such as India, the checking of plagiarism is still inferior and students often get away with this wrong.

b. Journalism: acts of plagiarism have been associated with journalism since a long time now. In journalism, the point of public trust is quite important, and the act of plagiarism does reduce this [1]. Today with the ease with which material for articles are available on the internet, the incidences of plagiarism in journalism have been on a rising scale. Plagiarism in journalism is punishable by suspension of the journalist while the charges may be looked into in further details by others.

c. Internet: the arrival of the digital age may have been a boon in a number of ways, but the problems such as plagiarism have got just worse due to the ease with which content can be copied. Often over the internet, some websites would copy content from other websites so as to drive "traffic" (which is nothing but internet users) towards their own site. This is a phenomenon which has been termed "content scraping". One may think that content scraping affects only larger, well established websites [5]; but this is not true as plagiarism affects other sites and blogs [6] as well. Free online tools such as Copyscape (http://www.copyscape.com) are becoming available so as to detect if any content of a website is plagiarized.

d. Other Sources: Plagiarism is seen, although rarely, in other media such as the music and film industry as well [1].

e. Self Plagiarism: It may sound strange, but self plagiarism is copying one's own work without citing or acknowledging the original work. The act of plagiarism is still valid as credit to the original work was not given adequately. Since the act is not exactly stealing from another person, this is not as severely punished and the term does seem to be oxymoronic [1].

Laws for Plagiarism

Although there is no existent law against plagiarism, this criminal act does get protection thanks to a number of other laws such as copyright laws, laws for unfair competition and even as violation of moral rights [7].

Paraphrasing

A paraphrase is a restatement of someone else's idea in your own words [8]. Paraphrasing is a good way to avoid plagiarism. Paraphrasing does not mean the simple changing of certain words, or simply shuffling the text. To create a paraphrase, one must do both, change the words, and the sentence structure; without changing the meaning in any way. It is often observed that people, in an attempt to paraphrase, end up changing the meaning of sentences completely, which is actually wrong. Thus care must be taken while paraphrasing any text.

Another point to be noted is that paraphrasing must still be accompanied by citations, although there may be significant change in the sentence. Citations provide the reader with information on the original work, and hence give acknowledgement to the original work. Even though paraphrasing may change sentence structure, it is still important to cite sources to give the necessary acknowledgement to avoid plagiarism.

Avoiding Plagiarism

If sufficient care is taken, plagiarism can be avoided almost completely. Steps which are essential to avoid plagiarism are [8].

1. Citations: Majority of cases of plagiarism exist due to lack of citations to original works. If proper citations are provided to the original work, plagiarism can be avoided. Learning different citation styles such MLA Formatting (i.e. Modern Language Association Formatting) for in-text citation of sources is important to avoid plagiarism. Guides to such citation styles can be found at The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) [9].

2. Use Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing is a great way to avoid plagiarism. However, learning proper techniques to paraphrase is important, as the wrong method of paraphrasing could actually lead to plagiarism itself.

3. Instructors and Employer Responsibilities: Instructors and Employers must be made responsible to teach and inculcate the meaning of plagiarism and to take efficient measures to avoid it. They must also be stern on the penalties for plagiarism.

4. Online Plagiarism Detectors: Making use of online plagiarism detectors such as Turnitin (http://www.turnitin.com) is important. Such online plagiarism detectors can help both the students and instructors to avoid plagiarism in assignments.

Conclusion

With the ease with which content can be copied, plagiarism is becoming an increasing problem all over the globe. This has resulted in a call for more efficient and stern actions to counteract this act of cheating. Rules must be laid down for plagiarism so that penalties are given for the wrong doers. At the same time students and employees must be taught about the wrongs of plagiarism and proper techniques on how to avoid it so that they would not be committing any violation of rules.

References

1. Wikipedia Article on Plagiarism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism], retrieval date- 12^th June 2008.

2. Plagiarism.org - What is Plagiarism [http://www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/what_is_plagiarism.html], retrieval date- 12^th June 2008.

3 .Alexander Klein, The New York Sun - Opinion: "Why Do They Do It?", date- 8^th June, 2007.

4. Hart, Mike & Friesner, Tim, Electronic Journal of E-Learning, research: "Plagiarism and Poor Academic Practice - A threat to the Extension of e-learning in Higher Education", date - 15^th December, 2004 (retrieved on 12^th June, 2008)

5. Del Jones, USA Today - "Authorship gets lost on Web", date- 1^st August, 2006 (retrieved on - 12^th June, 2008 from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-31-net-plagiarism_x.htm?POE=TECISVA ).

6. Maura Welch, The Boston Globe - "Online Plagiarism Strikes Blog World", date- 8^th May, 2006 (retrieved on 12^th June, 2008 from http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/05/08/online_plagiarism_strikes_blog_world/ ).

7. Stuart P. Green, Plagiarism, Norms, and the Limits of Theft Law: Some Observations on the Use of Criminal Sanctions in Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights; date - 18^th December, 2002 (retrieved on 12^th June, 2008 from: http://faculty.law.lsu.edu/stuartgreen/pdf/j-green2.pdf )

8. Plagiarism.org - Preventing plagiarism when writing [http://www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/preventing_writing.html], retrieval date- 12^th June, 2008.

9. The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) [http://owl.english.purdue.edu/] retrieval date- 12^th June, 2008.