Why Plagiarism Reduces Higher Learning to Lower Learning

Writing college papers is often a difficult process for a student. Nevertheless, students must endeavor to develop critical thinking skills when composing college essays, and always engage in the habit of citing sources in their work. Failure to do so may lead to undesirable consequences, since most professors routinely check for plagiarism.

Intellectual Climate

One reason that university professors check for plagiarism in student papers is to foster a challenging intellectual climate. College is a place where students should be urged to develop the ability to carefully analyze, synthesize and evaluate ideas. Should students be permitted to plagiarize works without penalty, the intellectual credibility of the college will be in jeopardy.

Ethical Concerns

Essentially, acts of plagiarism are strategic deceptions, which draw a person's integrity into question. "When a scholar plagiarizes, he defrauds other scholars of due credit for their work, and he contaminates scholarship by making it difficult or impossible to trace the evolution of ideas", remarks chemistry professor Gerry Harbison, of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Additionally, when students purchase papers from their peers, they are likely to fall susceptible to the erroneous belief that everything in life is just a matter of money.

Accreditation

Certain accreditations confer public trust, as well as a letter grade. Doctors, pharmacists and nuclear physicists should not be permitted to practice in their field on the basis of plagiarism or deception, since their work involves the lives of countless members of society.

Ramifications

Students at universities must not only be taught to practice proper citation methods in order to secure a desirable grade. They also must learn to exhibit conscientious attentiveness to detail in order to avoid legal ramifications that may result from any misrepresentations within their work. Despite the fact that most plagiarists will not be sued for submitting college level work as their own, certain individuals go on to publish their dissertations, and may become the subject of legal complaints.

Inactive Learning

A prevalence of plagiarism suggests that professors, as well as offending students, are culpable. Their willingness to permit plagiarized works to be deemed acceptable is evidence of their failure to promote active learning climates within their classrooms. To curb the negative influence of plagiarism, professors should rely on frequent and effective formative assessments, which challenge their students to routinely express the depth of their knowledge.