Abstract
This report is about plagiarism which is a kind of academic dishonesty. The report will be discussed about what plagiarism is and why a student is aiming to cheat. After that the recommendation about avoiding plagiarism will be discussed.
Introduction
It is widely accepted that academic dishonesty is anything that is unacceptable in academic purpose. As we know, plagiarism is one of academic dishonesties. There are various types of the academic dishonesty; according to the policies of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has explained that the following acts are included in Academic dishonesty.
Academic Fraud
Collaboration
Copying
Cribbing
Fabrication
Plagiarism
Sabotage
Substitution
Especially, plagiarism among of above list is one of highly considered problems in education. There are many researches about student plagiarism at university and they always emphasize the penalty of plagiarism. Most university has their own policy to regulate student plagiarism, but many students still plagiarize and they are often caught. This is the problem we face. Furthermore, since we got the internet, the way of student plagiarism has changed compare with the past and it caused increase of plagiarism. (RebeccaMarsh & JennyPickles, 2010) Claimed:
"In the past, to plagiarize another person's work was a time-consuming and risky process. It involved re-writing text, which had quite possibly been read already by other researchers in the field or your supervisor, by hand (p. 1). "
However, today, while the internet has become a major method for researching and the information technology has grown up, the internet spreads lots of information that easily can be copied. So students used to believe plagiarism is accepted because professionals work is conveniently open to anyone. Also, classic researches which are written by hands or printed have been converting to electronic documents base on the internet.
As the problem come to the fore, plagiarism is even spreads over countries. Some countries have lots of overseas students and the students commit plagiarism or any kinds of academic dishonesties. For instance, (DavisJoanna & ElevenBeck, 2005) reported, an education boss has said, Plagiarism by Asian students is a widespread cultural practice and rife in New Zealand institutions (p1). So, recognizing those problems and suggestions about plagiarism in academic dishonesty will be given in this report.
Definition
Plagiarism is normally using or copying someone's work and academic dishonesty is defined cheating or any other unacceptable act in education. According to Dictionary.com to "plagiarize" means
The unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.
Something used and represented in this manner.
In other words, plagiarism is swindling. It's both stealing someone's work and pretending the work is owned.
Followed by, academic dishonesty defined below from wordiq.com.
Academic dishonesty is cheating or plagiarism that occurs within an educational setting
Literature Review
While students are writing report, citing and referencing some other's work are so natural, but as the one of academic dishonesty, plagiarism is really different with parody or satire and it's really hard to be found, because, even if someone copy someone's work and say it's my work, then nobody knows that's plagiarized or not until other try to check. The plagiarist doesn't even think about the writer who preserved in his or her effort to write just a sentence. If they think about the writer and knows how the writer worked hard, then they can't plagiarize.
The definition of plagiarism is usually one like 'copying someone's work or idea' that I mention above, but according to plagiarism.org organization said that types of plagiarisms are divided in to two categories which are 'Source Not Cited' and 'Sources Cited (But Still Plagiarized)', these are:
Source Not Cited
The Ghost Writer
The Photocopy
The Potluck Paper
The Poor Disguise
The Labor of Laziness
The Self-Stealer
Source Cited (But Still Plagiarized)
The Forgotten Footnote
The Misinformer
The Too-Perfect Paraphrase
The Resourceful Citer
The Perfect Crime
An important point of above list is that not only using someone's work, using own work can be plagiarism like 'Misinformer' from the above list; means the writer make a ludicrous notion and put it in his or her research, just like a theory of imagination without any proof, even more, 'The Self-Stealer' means the writer using his or her own previous work for new one without citation. These are really tricky, because most students only think plagiarism is just copying from someone's work; it's a solemn fact though.
Between overseas student and domestic student, each has different thinking about plagiarism. Follows from (JohnPickering & GarryHornby, 2005), they investigated what Chinese students and New Zealander students are considering about plagiarism is bad or not in several scenario, for example, an scenario asked "if you need to plagiarize because the deadline is coming tomorrow, will you plagiarize?". The result was quiet impressive, average 32.8% of Chinese student shows positive when they face the scenarios. However, 19.6% New Zealander students responded positive in average. It doesn't mean that many overseas students tend to plagiarize but there is a possibility of plagiarism between overseas students.
The reasons why they plagiarize are really difficult to be explained, because there are a lot of reasons, and there is no standard of why they plagiarize, because it's human behavior. However, there are some common reasons which many researches stated. For example, (DevlinMarcia & GrayKathleen, 2007) found the eight categories of the reasons of student plagiarism in their study. These were listed below:
Inadequate admission criteria
Poor understanding of plagiarism
Poor academic skills
Teaching/learning issues
Laziness/convenience
Pride in plagiarizing
Pressures
Education costs
Although lots of plagiarism is spreading around the world, there is an alternative which is plagiarism checker. Since most sources of researches are converted and written on the internet, the plagiarism checking program has developed. This program reads all of the word and sentence of the report then find similarity with any sources on the internet. For example, 'Turnitin' which is famous plagiarism checking program, recognize which sentence and word are plagiarized or not. Also recognize quote and reference. Of course this program shows wrong result sometime, it has been developing, so more and more plagiarism will be captured by this kind of program.
Methodology
For the survey, secondary data were used to design survey sheet.
The Survey targeted 20 students who are currently studying at Queensland Institute of Business and Technology, the survey sheet is enveloped at the end as an appendix. This survey asked student about plagiarism experience and the usage of the internet that students usually use to research. Most participants were from Asian, so the result of survey might be biased, hope you take the survey circumstances into consideration.
Analysis and Discussion
Nationality
A total of 20 students completed the survey. Table 1 break down the number of students by nationality.
Figure 1: The number of students by Nationality
Large number of participants was Chinese and Korean, followed by Australian and Nepal, Japanese, Thai and Nepalese were only one student at each.
Plagiarism Experience
Figure 3: Plagiarism Experience by Nationality
Figure 2: Plagiarism ExperienceThe students answered "Have you ever commit plagiarism?" questionnaire, and the result was that more than half of the students have committed plagiarism. It describe that large number of student have plagiarized at least once.
Followed by, the second diagram which shows the number of student who plagiarized by nationality. Two major groups, Chinese and Korean took the highest proportion of the plagiarism experience. Especially, the Korean participants were five and four Korean said that they have committed plagiarism and half of Chinese have committed it.
Following bar graph illustrates the frequency of plagiarism. Most of the student said they only did once and two students respond that they plagiarized few times and the other two students respond that one student plagiarized many times and the other student plagiarize every assignment.
Figure 4: Frequency of Plagiarism
Internet usage and Plagiarism
We also asked internet usage while doing assignment to participants. None of them said "no", but the important point of this is the students who have plagiarized using the internet which means that the internet is highly regarded around plagiarists.
Recommendations
To help student to avoid committing plagiarism, giving students a chance to check their report is plagiarized or not, because most of students are using the internet to find out sources or research. As I mention above "Turnitin" or any other similar program will be helpful. Overseas students are supposed to be learned how to avoid plagiarism. There is high possibility of overseas student doing plagiarize that referred at literature review. Also current plagiarism problem is not that good, so universities and institutes are supposed to have found more way to avoid plagiarism.
Conclusion
As the one of academic dishonesties, plagiarism is come to the fore and there are a lot of ways to find professionals work which are likely to be plagiarized by student. A good example is the internet offer large number of information. However, Plagiarism is difficult to be found and there are so many reasons of student plagiarism. The study showed that many overseas students are thinking that plagiarism can be allowed in some cases, but it's not. Although, student plagiarizes, there are some program checking similarity with other reports and resources and then shows what sentence and words are plagiarized. So, while this kind of program is developing, student plagiarism will be decreased.
