PThe reasons for student plagiarism and ways to avoid it This is an essay examine that the reasons for students’ plagiarism and how can avoid it in maximum extent by education. In the first place, this essay analyzes some possible cause of the phenomenon of students’ plagiarism. In the second place, this essay investigates the influence of teaching to decrease the incidence of plagiarism. In this age of change, the human race is progressing rapidly on various fronts. Yet at the same time, many problems have arisen, a serious one of which is the plagiarism.
An increasing amount of students get into the internet to search the information and just copy, paste, and make it together when they’re supposed to be an assignment. According to Wang(as cited in Park, 2003), a definition of plagiarism is that copy someone’s thoughts and words using in their own articles without any reference(p. 743). There are two types of plagiarism in normal conditions. One of them is intentional plagiarism, the other one is unintentional plagiarism. Intentional plagiarism occurs when students copy others words or thoughts using in their own essay.
Copying an essay or article from the Internet, is one of the most popular ways of intentional plagiarism. For example, a student fabricating a source without quoting or giving credit by the author is intentional plagiarism. It is obvious that the causes of plagiarism are diverse, especially for intentional plagiarism. The reasons are discussed below. First of all, the main reason of university student intentional plagiarism is that the education factors, they were produced as a model when they were high school students. As a result, they are lack of creativity.
In the past study career, they are trained to become a group which lack of ability to original. Moreover, students in university usually do not know how to manage their time. Afterward when deadline does arrive, they would have as much pressure and work built up. And besides, they are lack of organizational skills. In the meantime, they have to do a lot of research and complete their essay with thousand of words. It is not easy for them, they will be overwhelmed by the large task and procrastinate. Then might find some ways make it easier for them, such as plagiarize online.
More importantly, they are lack of confidence. Some students in university lose their confidence and have not been in school for a long time because of they cannot understand what the teachers talk about. Also, students might riddle with self-doubt in their academic work and plagiarize from others work. Finally, the institutional admission criteria; student understanding of plagiarism; poor academic skills; a range of teaching and learning factors; personality factors and external pressures are also some important reasons of university student intentional plagiarism (Devlin & Gray, 2007).
However, this essay not only focuses on student intentional plagiarism but also discuss about the reasons for university student unintentional plagiarism. Unintentional plagiarism occurs when students using the words or thoughts of others without quotation or given credit by the author; because of they do not have any knowledge about what to do and how to do. Examples of unintentional plagiarism include Citation Confusion, paraphrasing by only change the sentence structure and did not change the words, or simply change the words did not change the sentence structure and Word Substitution.
According to Bamford and Sergiou (as cited in Perry), “some students believe that if you copy from several different sources, and then combine them, it is not actually plagiarism but ‘research’ ” (2001). This is the reason why student complete their essay without sense of plagiarism. It means that, students did unintentional plagiarize do not even know they are plagiarizing or not. From those factors of plagiarism, there are several strategies to help students avoid plagiarism and reduce the incidence.
Firstly, the university should let students know the consequences of plagiarism; make sure that gave students enough cautions. As a student, if the cost of getting caught is too high, he or she is not willing to plagiarize. Secondly, the teachers in university should teach students that how to complete their assessments, essays and reports with citation in the correct way. Otherwise, the incidence of unintentional plagiarism wills increase.
Furthermore, the professor teaches students skills to recognize how to paraphrase information properly by way of example (Snow, 2006). Most importantly, the most effective is way to set up a system for check up on students’ sources, such as Turn-It-In, which is one of the most popular checking systems. It will encourage student to check their own work whether plagiarism or not before their submission. And besides, students will try either consciously or unconsciously to avoid any plagiarism.
Particularly, the purport of this system is guarantee for avoid intentional plagiarism in maximum extent. Students would not dare to copy while they were asking to Turnitin. People who are doing education study should not only be satisfied with ways to stop plagiarism, but also they have to find out that plagiarism prevention. According to (Deubel, 2005) “educators should not always assume that… mentality of learners”, Educators in new century have to try their best to do more research about students plagiarism.
Most importantly, educators should develop a better prevention measures and a new education method instead of the old method. In conclusion, both intentional plagiarism and unintentional plagiarism are absolute plagiarism. It means that regardless of intentional or not, Plagiarism is immoral and illegal. On the one hand, some students who eager to finish an essay with smattering of knowledge about information or research and so little expenditure of time is the root causes of intentional plagiarism.
On the other hand, as a result of the lack of knowledge and the insufficient perception of copy, some student failing to avoid plagiarism. Therefore, the teaching in university effectually decreased the incidence of plagiarism and satisfy the requirements of help students not only master the writing skills but also check their work assume as intentional or unintentional plagiarism. Overall, in order to furthest reduce the occurrence of plagiarism. It is necessary to combine the contribution of teachers and students in the future.
References list
Wang, Y. (2008). University student online plagiarism. International Journal on E-Learning, 7(4), 743-757. Retrieved from www.proquest.com
Devlin, M.& Gray, K.(2007). In their own words: a qualitative study of the reasons Australian university students plagiarize. Higher Education Research & Development, 26(3), 181-198. doi:10.1080/07294360701310805
Bamford, J. &Sergiou,K.(2005). International Students and Plagiarism: an analysis of the reasons for plagiarism among international foundation students. Investigations in university teaching and learning, 2(2), 18-22.
Deubel,P.(2005). Plagiarism: Prevention Is the Name of the Game. English Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), 6-11.
Snow,E. (2006). Teaching Students about Plagiarism: An Internet Solution to an Internet Problem. Innovate, 2 (5).Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=306
