With every passing day new discoveries are made and the scope of information is increasing with prospects that it is becoming difficult for humans to handle information efficiently thus resulting in e-cheating and plagiarism.
Plagiarism can be defined as the deliberate use of another
person’s work with reference to your name without acknowledging the original
source. This is evaluated as cheating as one is trying to take credit for
someone else’s work. However, taking references from someone else’s work and mentioning
his/her name on each line copied as it is, is not part of plagiarism. It is
called in text citation.
Plagiarism is becoming really common these days in
assessments that students submit for their college work. This is considered as
a serious offence as attempt like this undermines the value of college degrees.
It has been until recently that the managements have decided to impose harsh
penalties on students who are found guilty of plagiarism.
Ways to Combat Plagiarism
In order to avoid plagiarism, several universities and
schools have started using anti plagiarism software’s and other electronic
methods to detect plagiarism that can detect similarities and frequencies of
words and phrases. In other schools the management also keeps track of the work
previously submitted by students in order to ensure that the work is not copied
from earlier years.
In order to avoid plagiarism students are nowadays made to
sign statements in which they accept that the work they have submitted, is
their own and the contribution from other sources has been properly
acknowledged. Because that’s what being in a community is all about, learning
together and cooperating such gestures make the students realize the importance
of their acts and portray that the management is vigilant about their work and
that plagiarism or e-cheating can get them into trouble.
The central point is that when one is producing a piece of
work that would be evaluated, one must entirely cite his own work, written by
him in his own words and containing his own ideas, interpretations, approaches
etc. in case the ideas and words have been copied from someone else then it
should be stated clearly with proper reference. Precisely it’s easy for a
person to avoid plagiarism, all what matters is that one should put his/her own
effort into the material he submits for assignment. Students who deceive are
more likely to become white collar criminal thus depriving the hard workers
from achieving their goal.
Conclusion
Fighting plagiarism and e-cheating has become very essential
in these times especially because text from all across the globe can be viewed
through internet. People who fake someone else’s work as their own must be
caught because with purloining someone’s hard work they may pass in their degrees
and probably get jobs, but they will have difficulty once they enter into their
professional lives. Secondly with vigilant software working to catch
plagiarism, students with real aptitude will come out in the light and the
carefree attitude towards studies could be warned against.
Bibliography
Zero Tolerance of Cheating and Plagiarism. Taken from
internet on September 24th, 2005 from website: http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Norman/howareyou/Macro/Student.Info/plagarism.html
French, 2004. Plagiarism. Taken from the internet on
September 24th, 2005 from website:
http://helios.bto.ed.ac.uk/resman/nrm/plagarism_and_copying
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