A Guideline to avoid Plagiarism in Academic Writing

Plagiarism has always concerned teachers and administrators, who want students’ work to represent their own efforts and to reflect the outcomes of their learning However, with the advancement of the Internet and easy access to almost limitless written material on every topic, student’s using of plagiarism has begun to affect teachers at all levels and teachers somehow fails to develop students’ writing, reading, and critical thinking abilities. It is important to understand the exact definition of plagiarism, why it is so important to teachers and how we can avoid it. In my paper at first, I will try to define the term plagiarism. After that the possible causes of plagiarism, a set of responsibilities(for students, teachers, and administrators) to address the problem of plagiarism; and by recommending a set of practices for teaching and learning that can significantly reduce plagiarism. By following the suggestions instructors, administrators, and students can work together more effectively to achieve success in teaching and learning.

Plagiarism is an ethically complex problem. Plagiarism occurs when a write deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original material without acknowledging its source. Whether deliberately and accidently, plagiarism is a serious and punishable offence. Moreover, plagiarism is stealing the intellectual work of someone else and passing it off as his/her own. Plagiarism can occur in much different form also. Using someone else’s words or ideas without giving credit is stealing. It is the same thing looking over the shoulder of a fellow student during a math exam. If someone caught while doing plagiarism can receive a zero on his/her paper or could fail the entire course or even being suspended or expelled. So plagiarism is an act of using or imitating the language and thoughts of another person or author as his/her own without the authorization and consent from that author. The book titled ‘The Little Brown Handbook by H. Ramsey Fowler and Jane E. Aaron has mentioned two kinds of plagiarism. They are:

1.      Deliberate plagiarism and

2.      Accidental Plagiarism.

Deliberate plagiarism:  It includes copying a phrase, a sentence, or a longer passage from a source and passing it off as your own, summarizing and paraphrasing someone else’s ideas without any acknowledgement and coped from friend and another students.

Accidental Plagiarism:  It occur when writer forgetting to place quotation marks around another writer works and carelessly copying a source when the writer means to paraphrase.

So we can say plagiarism is -

·        Students can easily purchase notes from the internet or they could easily find the topic they are working on. Sometimes senior students’ sale notes to the junior students.

·        Students sometimes fail to cite the sources they have used for their writing which indicates plagiarism. Moreover a paraphrase with no citation is an example of plagiarism.

·        Sometimes writers took help from the family members or friends without mentioning their name is also plagiarism.

·        Students took ideas from multiple sources at a time which is also plagiarism.

·        Taking idea’s from others without their proper acknowledgement is plagiarism.

·        Lack of common knowledge of the students. That means, certain facts are so well-known that one do not need to worry about verification.

·        Using direct quotation from the internet without paraphrasing it is also plagiarism.

·        Paraphrase with no citation is example of plagiarism.

With the creation of the World Wide Web (WWW), students have the ability to access great amount of information at a faster speed. At past, in order to plagiarize the students had to spend hours searching through books to copy information to write a paper. Now it is very easy for the students to find an article on any subject, press the right button of their mouse, select, copy then paste and have the paper done in a matter of seconds. But students gain nothing from this, no effort or thought was put into the paper, nothing was learned or gained from the experience. If we spend our lives in cheating and stealing, we will never learn anything or have the opportunity to think wisely and logically.

Understanding why students plagiarize can help teachers to consider how to reduce the opportunities for plagiarism in their classrooms. There are some valid reasons behind the fact that why students plagiarize in their writing.

·        Students may fear failure or fear taking risks in their own work.

·        Students may have poor time management skills or they may plan poorly for the time and effort requires for research based writing and believe that they have no choice but to plagiarize.

·        Instructors or institution may fail to report cheating when it does occur or may not enforce appropriate penalties.

·        Students may not know how to generate the ideas of others and document the sources of those ideas appropriately in their writing.

·        Students may not know how to take careful and fully documented notes during their research.

·        Instructors may assume that students have already learned appropriate academic rules of research and documentation.

·        In some settings, using other people’s words or ideas as their own is an acceptable practice for writers of certain kinds of texts (for example, organizational documents), making the concepts of plagiarism and documentation less clear cut than academics often acknowledge and thereby confusing students who have not learned that the conventions of source attribution vary in different contexts.

In an academic context, students are taught to analyze the sources of their ideas. Therefore they are expected to provide citations for any direct quotations, paraphrases and important ideas that are taken others and failure to do so is plagiarism. Punishment for plagiarism is based on social, ethical factors. Students who plagiarize should get punishment because teachers want them to learn not to steal. The major consequence of plagiarism is that people who engage in it hurt themselves.  Good research involves good number of skills.  Evaluating sources, taking careful notes, selecting appropriate quotations, paraphrasing, and giving credit to others for their ideas and words definitely helps to avoid plagiarism.  Students who plagiarize may never learn these skills, and life in college and beyond can be difficult without them.  Of course people who engage in plagiarism also hurt others like their classmates, , the school or university they attend.  At the very least, turning in plagiarized work is unfair to students who do their own work.  It also affects the grading system.  And whether detected or not, plagiarism violates the rules of the institution. We have to keep in our mind that that students and teachers are working together to help students learn knowledge and skills that will enable them to fulfill their potential.    Plagiarism also undermines the whole notion of academia on which the academic world is grounded.  All knowledge depends on previous knowledge.

Sir Isaac Newton said, “We want people to be able to evaluate what we say, and we want to acknowledge our debt to those whose thinking has helped us.  We do so by carefully crediting others for their ideas and their words.”

One of the consequences of plagiarism is expulsion and this can literally ruin a student’s life. This means that students, who plagiarize, even if it is only one time, can face being expelled from their educational institutions. This could have long-term impacts on the rest of their lives as they would probably find it quite difficult to find another institution willing to accept them. Furthermore, it would be mean a lot of wasted time, money, and effort, especially if the student was nearing graduation. Many other institutions, both large and small, take plagiarism very seriously and are not hesitant to punish the plagiarized person.

. In their Official Plagiarism Policy Statement Illinois State declared that, “A minimum of one year of disciplinary probation is the standard precedent for such violations, in addition to appropriate educational sanctions” (2006).

They go on to discuss how the student will not be allowed to drop any classes so that whatever class they plagiarized something for they will certainly fail. It is clear that colleges do not accept plagiarism and work hard to make students aware of what it is by posting these notices about punishments and requiring professors to provide definitions and the fact that action will be taken if it is suspected.

To avoid plagiarism students must Just as students must live up to their responsibility to behave ethically and honestly as learners, teachers must recognize that they can encourage or discourage plagiarism not just by policy and, but also in the way they structure assignments and in the processes they use to help students define and gain interest in topics developed for papers and projects. If a student uses another person’s ideas, opinion he/she must have to give credit for that. Moreover, students have to be familiar with the topic they have chosen for the paper. By understanding the subject of the topic students can write in their own words. Students have to avoid reading from another author’s material too much as they will be more inclined to grave that author’s exact statement.

Some schools offers program or services that can scan papers for plagiarized content. If students are highly concerned, then they might want to consider such services. If a student gets confused about his/her work means whether they are in dilemma regarding their work then they should talk to their respective instructor. Its better to be clear before to face any serious consequences. A plagiarized paper can result in a` failing grade for the course, can get a negative comment on academic record or can dismissed from the institution.

We could follow these steps/recommendations  to avoid plagiarism:

·        Analyzing a set of sources that students have themselves determined are relevant to the issues they are investigating.

·         Acknowledging clearly when and how they are drawing on the ideas or        phrasings of others.

·         Learning the conventions for citing documents and acknowledging sources appropriate to the field they are studying

·         Consulting their instructors when they are unsure about how to acknowledge the contributions of others to their thought and writing

·        Building support for the students in researched writing

·        Clearly stated the writing policies to avoid plagiarism

·        Teaching students the conventions for citing documents and acknowledging sources in their field, and allowing students to practice these skills

·        Avoiding the use of recycled assignments that may invite plagiarism

·        Engaging students in the process of writing, which produces materials such as notes, drafts, and revisions that are difficult to plagiarize

·        Discussing problems students may encounter in documenting and analyzing sources, and offering strategies for avoiding or solving those problems

·        Discussing papers suspected of plagiarism with the students who have turned them in

·        Reporting possible cases of plagiarism to the administrators or boards

·        Declare policies for conducting ethical research, as well as procedures for

investigating possible cases of academic dishonesty and its penalties

·         Providing support services (for example, writing centers or Web pages) for students who have questions about how to cite sources

·        Supporting faculty and student discussions of issues concerning academic honesty, research ethics, and plagiarism

·         Recognizing and improving working conditions

·         Providing opportunities for instructors to change the ways they work with writing in their courses

·        Policy for using sources should be include in the syllabus

·        Design assignments that require students to explore a subject in dept

·        Start building possible topic early so that students can start their research by utilizing the given

·        Allow students to define specific questions about that theme so that they become engaged in learning new ideas

·        Developed schedules for students that allow them time to explore and to support their writing

·        Support student’s work

·        Make the technology used for the writing visible/ or acknowledging the online sources

·        Common knowledge means regular information known by all is also have to check

·        Show students how to evaluate their sources

·        Ask students to rewrite the sections where sources have been misused

·        Focus on successful reading to avoid plagiarism

·        Try to give several revision cross checking after finishing the  writing

“Writing develops from a seed idea and grows organically as a whole through proper use of revision.” (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

Finally, plagiarism is a serious crime we should not take it lightly. We should not take the risk of attempting plagiarism. It will cost not only to grade but also students respect and reputation in front of the teachers and friends. Students for their future life have to consider the goal. Management authority should take appropriate disciplinary actions so that the evil power called plagiarism could remove which will ensure a meaningful and authentic academic writer.

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