Plagiarism And The Internet

Ethics in an Academic Environment

Plagiarism and the Internet

The advance of technology has grown exponentially over the last several decades. It has touched almost everyone's life in one way or another. Many individuals are using online technology to perform online banking functions, engage in commerce or join social networking sites. The online world has not only increased the amount of information and misinformation that is shared, but has also increased the efficiency of completing work, both business and personal. With this efficiency has come the temptation to plagiarize information, ideas or another person's work. The word plagiarism comes from the Latin word "plagiarius" and is a synonym for "kidnapper" or "plunderer" and used in the sense of "literary thief" (APA, 2007). Plagiarism has grown tremendously throughout time via the web and has had an impact on all that are involved be it the student, instructors, or even those that the source originated from. There are many reasons, as well as concerns as to the sites that enable and/or encourage students to plagiarize weakening the educational system. As a teacher, or a student, it is important to know what to look for and where to find it in order to avoid the complications of plagiarism. Fortunately, there are now tools the Internet provides to detect or prevent plagiarism along with the support of some search engines. The purpose of this paper is to present how seriously plagiarism has undermined higher education, why people are taking risks to plagiarize and what teachers, students and society can do to fight against plagiarism.

Upon researching plagiarism statistics are staggering. "In an undergraduate survey conducted this academic year at a dozen colleges by Rutgers professor Donald McCabe, 67% of the 13,248 respondents admitted to having cheated at least once on a paper or test" (Rawe, 2007, p. 59). According to Embleton (2007), Donald McCabe's survey in 1999 showed 10 percent of students plagiarized off the Internet; then, by 2001, 41 percent had admitted to plagiarizing off the Internet. Education is structured to produce mature professionals for the workforce and that goal becomes completely negated if students plagiarize and cheat as quoted. It is also disconcerting thinking about what kind of workplace ethics these types of students will create.

In 2005 at Ohio University, a former graduate student, Thomas A. Matrka, uncovered 55 engineering master's theses in the university's library that appeared to contain plagiarism" (Wasley, 2007). Ohio University has set a recent precedent by revoking a former mechanical-engineering students' degree. It appears this has been the most severe punishment documented to this day. Ohio University's chair of the Academic Honesty Hearing Committee stated that they would continue with this course of action for any student who engages in this type of deception. The full outcome of this investigation is ongoing even after two years of academic committee meetings. Sixteen of those still need to meet with the committee this spring at the University. This is a complete waste of educational time, money and labor for faculty and staff.

It also seems that students aren't the only ones who've been bitten by the plagiarism bug. To highlight the global nature of this problem, two professors at Chinese universities have also been charged with using others' work as their own. "Professor Ai Young, of the elite Wuhan University in central ChinaÐ'....had revised one of his undergraduate's research reviews into dissertation and had it published in 2005, with Ai listed as the second author" (World News Connection, 2007, para. 2). This professor had been given a research grant to study laser communication and in turn the research was cancelled because of his dishonesty. The second professor obtained material from two other authors and claimed it as his own, and also misrepresented himself as a member of a prestigious science foundation of China. "Zhang's misconduct was a deviation from ethics in the science field and it not only hurt the authors of the original essays but also besmirched the NSFC's reputation" (World News Connection, 2007, para. 9). Both professors also were working on great contributions to society with the research on laser communication and thermal spraying and welding, respectively. These professors have been prohibited from applying for research grants for a period of three years. Hopefully, others will be able to refine the work they knowingly almost destroyed and continue the advancement of scientific knowledge that is so vital to higher education.

Plagiarism via the web provides a detrimental handicap for the educational system. The most important is the impact it has on the ability to educate the student with the proper learning tools. Educators give guidance and instruction as to what and how research should be used. However, with today's technology, vast amounts of information is as near as a click of a mouse which can easily be plagiarized without detection. Without guidance and education, students will not be appropriately prepared for life's challenges in the work field. They will not be able to use their individual creative talents to prepare material for presentations, meetings, etc. When a student chooses plagiarism instead of actual leg work legwork in getting an assignment done they defeat the purpose.

There are several websites available to enable and encourage the student to plagiarize making it extremely easy for the student to turn in what is more than likely someone else's work. These sites are often called paper-mills. Sites like School Sucks, Term Papers, AllFreeEssays.com can provide a student with entire term papers (Weisbard 2007). Websites can go as far as providing an entire research paper that students can turn in as their own making it not only easier, but more tempting to plagiarize. Although not an acceptable practice, there are many reasons students choose to plagiarize. There are students that are simply just lazy and choose to "take the easy way out" so as not to do the work themselves. There are also those that work long hours due to the type of job they may have which leaves little, if any, time outside of class to work on their papers. Or they may have regular Monday thru Friday, 8:00 to 5:00 jobs, but a family at home that needs constant care. There are also students who think its okay to use just a sentence or two to get them by. For some students it seems worth taking the chance of getting caught over missing a deadline.

Everyone including the plagiarizers knows that plagiarism is wrong (Villana, 2006). What can we do to