Plagiarism, a controversial issue has been discussed for decades, now arouse the particular concerns. According to Martin, a professor comes from University of Wollongong, he stated that plagiarism which means the use of someone's words or ideas without getting proper access, is only one of general problems of cheating. (Martin, 1992)and this phenomenon spreads rapidly in the whole society, especially in collages and universities. The increasing number of students tend to plagiarize and they copy from the internet, published books and magazines, teachers' handouts , even steal someone's interview. If they want to try to do a easier essay , if they do not want to use their own thoughts, if they do not know how to manage their time , and if they miss creative brain, plagiarism probably will appear. However, with technique developed, universities can detect the these e-copy essays by using academic and specialist software , as a result, plagiarism as a extent of growing problem became one of the significant issues in the universities. For instance, the statistics for collage students plagiarism from an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald indicated that there were 362 counts of plagiarism recorded by the university of Technology, Sydney in 2005, at the same time, it was recorded 134 counts in the University of Wollongong. It was estimated that perhaps 3500 students had been found plagiarizing or cheating across eight Australian universities from 2001 to 2005. (cited by Song-Turner, 2008)
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal" - TS Eliot , who was a poet , literary critic, and editor in England . Plagiarism is not a current topic. As we known , Shakespeare even stole original sources from Holinshed as his part of historical plots. Martin Luther King also copy someone's ideas as a part of a chapter of his doctoral dissertation. They were both historical celebrities in the world, so it is not a surprise that students copy someone's words at present. There is an example mentioned about plagiarism at universities in last paragraph that is tip of iceberg, especially in modern times, most students copy and paste on the internet by using google, unfortunately, google is not only a good place for student to search and plagiarize , but also teacher can detect plagiarism of students on google. Different university may be have different penalties about plagiarism, the most worst would be that they can fail the exam and go home.
In this paper it is important to note that we are concern with the cause and effects of plagiarism at universities. This essay will be divided into four parts. In the frist part we are going to talk about the background of plagiarism and a short historical example as well as modern instance. In the second part, we will focus on several reasons why students tend to plagiarism and explain it deeply. In the third part, we will show some main effects about plagiarism at universities. Finally, the conclusion of this essay will be given . In other word, this paper will focus on the cause of intentional and unintentional plagiarism and the effect on losing degree, damaging relationship and losing independent thinking respectively, which are supported by reasons, effective example and quotes as follow in each of the parts.
2. Main Body
2.1 The cause of plagiarism in universities
Plagiarism related to a difficult field to distinguish that includes a wide range of students' behaviors which are not only non academic citations but also tend to copy someone's whole words and ideas. The root causes of plagiarism are complicated, but it still worth exploring, so it would be divided into two categories which are intentional and unintentional plagiarism.
There are perhaps two main aspects in unintentional plagiarism . Firstly, many new students at collages and universities have poor understanding of academic references and the concept of plagiarism. specifically, they never be told that how to write an academic essay and how to avoid plagiarism, for example, students misunderstand the concept of plagiarism which only includes copy someone' writing contents, but they do not realize that stealing someone's idea is also a kind of cheating , as a result, they may confuse about it and be caught by tutors , then fail the exam in the end. According to Jakoczy L and Hornakova V(2011), they stated that students were not possessing the skills to work and were being familiar with the academic culture of writing. Secondly, another obvious reason to support my idea is that some students are not enough to take care of their note taking. Due to too much reading for research, some students may be mixed up their paraphrased notes and the original words in the note taking period. After that , at the beginning of writing , they could not distinguish the sentences which is their notes and which is the direct quotes from the articles, if they do not take care of it . Furthermore , they may be cited some incorrect or incomplete references and information to make sure that they have not cheat. According to Alberta university, they say that "Careless note taking-- many students inadvertently plagiarize while doing preliminary research. "(2012)
"Students with an intent to deceive. "(Jakoczy L and Hornakova V, 2011) Some students who have learned to write an academic essay by teachers' systemic teaching still plagiarize, so it is true to see that in some cases, plagiarism is deliberate . This phenomenon would be several reasons as follows. In the first place, "Poor time management and organizational skills" might be obvious reason why students tend to plagiarize. (Alberta University, 2012). Most students usually do not know how to plan their time and do not have the organizational skills when they face such a large essay, particular in undergraduate students. Undergraduate students are younger than postgraduate students and they maybe have not a clear goal in the future , so they take plenty of time to do other things . Due to pressure of essay, they might probably procrastinate the time and escape to face it, as a result, they do not have enough time to write it very seriously, their only choice is to plagiarize. As well as this , though they plan their time to write an essay, plan always changes. For example , they try to manage their time , but some external factors always influence their plan, such as a party, playing computer games. In the second place, another compelling argument to proof the idea would be that majority of the collages students maintain that it is easier to plagiarize by searching on the internet than do formal work. According to Logue R(2004), he states that "Cutting and pasting a few sentence , paragraphs or even whole works is comparatively easy and requires little skill or imagination. The world wide web has given students and academics the opportunity to plagiarize and to publish by allowing almost limitless journeys into cyberspace. "There are a number of articles and journals relating your essay so that students can easily copy someone's word or ideas even download the complete essay from the internet without doing a huge of reading and effort. As we known , most students at collages and universities earn the money as a dairy cost by doing part-time jobs, so they do not have much time to finish their essay better. Not surprisedly, plagiarism on the internat as a temptation takes shortcut in order to save their time and efforts. and this kind of things spread rapidly in universities. Franklyn-Stokes and Newstead found that more than half of students in American admitted that they had copied someone's work with awareness behaviors, however, Almost 70 percent paraphrased without references and 50 percent of direct quotes with using no references(cited by Logue R, 2004)
Consequently, due to these kinds of reasons, it has never surprised that there are a large number of essay frauds appeared in schools. With this increasing phenomenon, it could come to extent variety of influences of plagiarism which will be concentrated on in the following paragraph.
2. 2 The effects of plagiarism at universities
Plagiarism, a heated issue concerned by students and tutors , has a number of significant effects at universities and collages. Some students might have been plagiarized from others' original text for many years, the reason why they did it like that is that they had never been caught by their instructors. Although all of the universities have the rules to forbid plagiarism and make consequences clear, those students who are copy someone's word and ideas without cited authors still believe that they have done nothing wrong. Almost of them think that their common answer is' everyone will do it '. There are several reasons pointed out that the most obvious one is ancient famous person were plagiarist as well and they also had a great contribution in their life. As a result , an growing number of plagiarism have spread ed in campus rapidly , and this phenomenon may be lead to invaluable consequences.
The most important and perhaps obvious effect would be that the students who are plagiarists could devastate their educational careers and loss their jobs in the future. According to Hall S he stated that when cheating was caught , collages students who did plagiarism would loss their degrees. Faculty of universities' members who plagiarism their works would have the same serious results as well. (2000)To be specific, if you do not pay more attention to your study which is relating to how to write an academic essay, you will possibly commit plagiarism in collages, if tutors caught your plagiarizing, you will be failed and kicked out of your universities. Even though you are still stay at your schools, but officials which may be a management department will such a bad action degree or personal materials. Not surprisedly, "Students who plagiarize graduate lacking important knowledge and skills, diminishing the value of their John Carroll education. "(John Carroll University, )
Another serve aspect about plagiarism explored in the following paragraph is that it has been damaged relationships which are students to students and students to teachers. Hall S believed that Plagiarism just as poisons made the relationship between students and teachers worse and worse by destroying the mutual trust which is an vital portion of the learning process. . . . Plagiarism damages relationships between students who are plagiarists and those who do hard working in their grades. (2000)As we can see, the instructors take much time and join their best effort to prepare their classes. they read students' essays and modify carefully , then they meet students and give them some useful advice, because of this, when the tutors found that some students do a plagiarism job which is a kind of cheating. they will feel disappointed and unrespectful. As well as this, due to collage students copy widely from others complete works and articles, teachers have to act an character of policeman who are found where is student dong wrong. Consequently, all of the students become suspects when they submit essays. Mistrust and doubt are instead of mutual trust. It will separate a long distance between teachers and students. Meanwhile, when the plagiarists acquire a score as high as students who are do their work honestly in the class. The later ones might feel that it is not fair. Some tend to think they can commit plagiarism as well. others could look down on student who do their work without efforts, and it lead to all of students never close in touch and lack of teamwork spirit.
In addition the influences of plagiarism at universities is that the younger generation at universities and collages will loss of critical, creative, and independent thinking. John Carroll University states that"When a student plagiarizes, that person loses the chance to develop skills which make for a productive life. "(?? ) Apparently, coping someone's words and idea seems like to steal others property from their brains, it decrease your motivation to create your own original ideas. If you are home to a brilliant brain and potential idea to share, and you ignore it , your brain will never come up with a potential idea. At universities, it can assume that majority of the students tend to prefer to complete articles than their originals. In other words , it is easier to copy others work than do it themselves. when topic of essay is signed , they will start to seek it . Then large of sources can be found on the internet , books and journals. It is better to see that their essays just like different sentences that indicates the same meaning of one topic. The reason why universities need students to write an essay is that essay can produce different viewpoints from thousands of students. If their essays are just the meaning of one topic , they will gradually miss their own thinking, which is a horrible thing in younger generations.
Conclusion
On balance, the purpose of this essay is to examine the reasons and effects of students behaviors which plagiarized at universities and collages. On the basis of this paper, firstly, the two obvious causes of plagiarism at universities has been given above, which are unintentional and deliberate thoughts coming from collages students. There are two aspect which are poor understanding of academic essay and careless note taking in the unintentional reasons. As well as this, some students who are plagiarist have intentional causes including poor time management, convenient to plagiarize. Secondly, the effects of plagiarism embrace three essential things:losing and devastating their educational career, poison the relationship between students and students as well as teachers and students, harming critical, creative and independent thinking . We have to confess that these causes and effects of plagiarism maybe is not only full viewpoints, but these stand for main and clear ideas about plagiarism. It is easy to help readers to understand the concepts as a knowledge background of plagiarism. Nowadays, Internet facilitates collage students to plagiarize, It is likely became a huge problem to be slove, however, there are some anti-plagiarism and plagiarism checker software used widely in universities, which are available and accurate to detect your essay whether is plagiarism. In the future, If the students could know consequences of plagiarism more clearly, and if education system could pay more attention and focus on this issue more seriously, it would improve the quality of higher education.
