The Act of Plagiarism Breaches Academic Integrity
Before going right into the topic of plagiarism, one should talk about academic integrity. Academic integrity consists of five core values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. In other words, it means being truthful in one’s work.
On the contrary, plagiarism breaches all of the core values of professional integrity. However, before that, one should first develop a clear concept of plagiarism.
It is a phrase with a lot of complex definitions. As a result, there is much confusion about what it means. So get that sorted by having a clear conception regarding plagiarism so that in future the students are saved from the duplicate content issue.
What is Plagiarism?
In simpler words, plagiarism or academic plagiarism, in this case, is when one takes someone else’s works or ideas without crediting the creator or claiming it as his own. Of course, there are some distinct models of plagiarism. Such as:
- If one buys works from someone else and claims the credit for it.
- It also occurs, when a student is blatantly copying bits of contents from the internet and using it in projects.
- Copying from other students’ works with or without their knowledge is a classic act of plagiarism.
- It occurs when a student copies from an online source and then pastes it to article spinners online to get the rephrased version of it.
But there are more intangible forms too, and those are more unidentifiable. In the cases of these plagiarism practices, a student might not even know that they are committing plagiarism. This plagiarism occurs when one indulges himself into the following practices:
- When a student quotes someone else’s exact wording and fails to use quotation marks or citations, it falls under the act of plagiarism.
- If a student paraphrases someone’s ideas without referencing them, then also it is regarded as plagiarism.
- Even if someone reuses portions from his or her previous works without referencing, then also the person commits the act of plagiarism.
- Moreover, if a student uses ideas from someone’s lecture without proper reference, this is a form of plagiarism too.
Students better avoid all of these practices to avoid any academic misconduct.
Consequences of Plagiarism:
With the dawn of the internet, it is easier than ever to access the content. Thus it’s even easier for pupils to get tempted. Let’s face it. It takes a student to work and study hard for weeks to produce an original project work.
On the other hand, plagiarizing some bits of contents from the internet may save you lots of time. However, with improved technology, it’s even more comfortable for the institutes to detect plagiarism thanks to anti-plagiarism software or plagiarism tools.
So, one should not challenge the system. Otherwise, he or she might face the following consequences:
- Students might face humiliation or loss of academic reputation.
- One might even get penalize with permanent or temporary expulsion from academic institutions.
- Fines and penalties are least a student might face if caught plagiarizing.
- A student might even face the loss of a whole academic year.
- Deposition from an academic major is among the common punishments that a student ends up getting in these scenarios.
How to check for plagiarism?
One can quickly check if his or her research paper contains any unintentional plagiarism. There are multiple free plagiarism checkers for students available online students can take the help of these tools to check for plagiarism.
The best thing about them is that they are easily accessible. Moreover, few websites can be categorized as essay checkers. These websites are beneficial.
Students can use the plagiarism detector to detect as well as avoid plagiarism. Not only that one can use it even to find out the grammar issues in a research paper, along with the spelling mistakes.
Preventing Plagiarism:
Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional. Thus one needs to look to ways to avoid being an information thief. To avoid plagiarism, students must take a few notes. Hence a few steps can help students produce plagiarism free content.
- Firstly, students should have original ideas and opinions. Quotes and other materials can only be used (with proper citation) to support their point or argument.
- Pre-planning the format of the project is highly recommended. When someone has a formatting idea of his/her own, it cuts out on the possible unintentional plagiarism.
- Students must include a reference for any source they quote or paraphrase.
- They also have to follow proper referencing methods.
- They have to invest more in reading and researching on the given topic. The more they research, the more original ideas can come to them.
- Moreover, a student must manage his or her time well. The better time management one shows, the more room he or she has for originality.
- The students must improve on their writing skills, they should have a good hold over the vocabulary of the language they are using to write an academic paper. In this way, they can avoid writing duplicate content and at the same time, can have fewer spelling errors or grammar issues.
So these were the steps to get original content. If a student follows these steps, sincerely, there’s no way he or she can end up with even 1% plagiarism on his or her work. And therefore, they can get good grades at the same time maintaining integrity. In short, the citation is the key.
A concluding note:
Some students are sincere in their efforts, of making their projects unique. They are the ones who face all the disservices by plagiarism as a whole. If their classmates’ plagiarize and get away with it, it’s unfair to these hardworking students.
Therefore, most educational institutes all over the world use anti-plagiarism software. Hence, all the hard-working students who spend hours and hours of sleepless nights must take measurements against unintentional plagiarism too.
