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Plagiarism is a widely growing epidemic in today’s world, from school to the corporate workplace. With the risks and consequences associated with plagiarism, it is confusing as to why so many people take the chance. Plagiarism is the act of directly copying someone else’s words and/or work and passing it off as your own for personal gain. Plagiarism can be avoided in a variety of ways. Let’s look at how Franklin University offers ways to help students avoid plagiarism. Franklin University offers many tools to help students steer clear of plagiarism.
Turnitin. com, a website that lets students submit their work ahead of time to be evaluated, searches for matches and possible matches, and notifies students of any suspected plagiarism. Refworks, a program that provides students with pre-made APA layouts for citing references to help avoid intentional or accidental plagiarism, is another feature used by Franklin University. Like many other universities and workplaces, Franklin has a strict policy in place for academic dishonesty.
When the first offense occurs, the professor and the course manager at Franklin determine the student’s penalty. In many cases this can range from a score of zero on the assignment in which the plagiarism occurred, up to failing the class in its entirety, with no option for the student to drop the course to avoid failing it. Any offense thereafter will result in a failing grade in the class, and the student’s records and transcripts show a dismissal due to academic dishonesty.
With consequences such as the above, why do students resort to such behavior? Many people choose to believe that plagiarism occurs because students are lazy or outright deceitful. In some instances however, that is not the case. There are many reasons why students plagiarize. Writing struggles with new information and formats, confused on how to credit the sources, and sometimes due to not being organized and following schedules. Students rush to meet deadlines, often times going past them, and resort to plagiarism as the only way to succeed.
Research at many levels indicates that such copying is more likely to be driven by desperation or the fear of failure (Williams, 2007). These are just a few examples of why students feel it is necessary to jeopardize their academic integrity for the sake of making the grade, even though majority of the time the end result is failure. References Williams, Bronwyn T. (2007) Trust, betrayal and authorship: Plagiarism and how we perceive students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(4)