Words: 1393
The consequences of such acts are critically undesirable, and practicing plagiarism can lead to serious ramifications for the student such as getting F or zero grade, getting suspended from the university for one whole semester, ND in the worst case a dismiss from the university could be given. Practicing plagiarism has an impact on the student honesty as well as on the university integrity. The reputation of the university for instance could go down; if it’s known that a large amount of its student got caught for cheating and for attempting plagiarism.
The Future career of fresh graduates from these universities could be hard to find since the employee wants to hire a well trusted person not a cheater, and if they got a job, they may lose it in a short period of time because of their dishonesty. 3 CAUSES Both students and teachers contribute in student plagiarism. This section will highlight Some Of the causes of student plagiarism from two perspectives. A. Student side of causes of student plagiarism 1. Internet: the variety of information in the internet has made it easy for the student to attempt plagiarism (Wang, 2008).
Search engines are the best way; students just type the key words to their desired information and thousands of results will pop- up (Wang, 2008). Virtual libraries have millions of good electronic resources which are easy to copy; they are like prey waiting for college students to hunt. In the reference of Wang (2008), The Web made the problem of student plagiarism even bigger, in his survey 80% of the students agreed that the problem is more serious because of the internet, and 75% says that there is more plagiarism from internet instead of printed materials because of the ease in copying information online.
Paper mills websites has grown significantly lately; they offer a variety of services by experts to fulfill student needs. 4 Table 1: The Web and Plagiarism (Wang, 2008) 2. Laziness: laziness is one main reason to plagiarism. Previous studies showed that it is the biggest cause of student plagiarism (Roberts, 010). A study by Wang (2008), shows that the highest percentage of agreement to the causes of plagiarism is laziness. This is logical, since in many universities there is a good number of lazy students who depend on others in doing their assignments and solving their homework. 3.
Lack of time and pressure: students in universities often lack to have time to do their assignments. For instance, imagine that a student has to do a piece of writing that is due tomorrow morning and he did not do anything about it. It is easier for him to just copy and paste than writing it (Bataan, 2010). Departments do to consider that the student have other courses, their only concern is to give assignments and put more stress on the student which forces the student to copy and steal other’s work. 5 Table 2: The Responds of the Students to the Causes of Student Plagiarism (Wang, 2008) B.
The impact of teachers on student plagiarism 1 . Teachers accept of popularized work: in some universities teachers allow the student to pass Off popularized work in India erect way. If the student know that the teacher accept this act, a question arise; if he is going to get good grades, why not to plagiarism (Williamson, McGregor, Archibald, 2009). 2. Teacher’s same course work: if the teacher gives the same homework and assignment or similar to them every semester, students will probably submit a copied piece with slight changes of someone else’s homework from previous semesters (Bataan, 2010). Ill.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS As mentioned earlier, plagiarism is not a new issue and it has a long history, which means the solutions to this problem are long-term based that requires time, patience, and determination. This section will propose some solutions to the problem from two angles: the first half of this section will discuss the some solutions proposed for students and the second half will focus on providing solutions for teachers. 6 A. What a student can do to avoid plagiarism. First of all, students have to be self-motivated, active, and inspired by learning since the largest cause for plagiarism is laziness (Roberts, 2010).
In addition, self-confidence plays an important role in avoiding plagiarism, students who do not trust in their work tend to copy others work, because they think that their own work worth nothing. Moreover, university students should understand that dividing the work into small pieces will help finish it, and handling the stress. However, it s recommended for the university to provide some courses in time management and motivates the students to enroll in such courses. Furthermore, students must have the knowledge of what precisely plagiarism is (Samuels, Bass, 2006); so that they can avoid it.
B. What a teacher can do to prevent plagiarism. Firstly, teachers must not allow students to pass off popularized papers (Williamson et al, 2009). Secondly, many universities use applications and websites to check for plagiarism through the internet (Bridgehead, 2010). ‘Turn it in” is the most popular service for teachers to check popularized papers (Bataan, 201 0). Thirdly, punishing the student by letting him pays a fee or giving him a zero grade may help, if the student knows that he will be punished, he will reconsider his work and make it clean and neat.
Last but not least, teachers should spend some time in teaching students the required skills such as paraphrasing, summarizing, and referencing to write a neat piece of paper (Williamson et al, 2009). Table 3: Training the Students about Plagiarism 7 A. Students’ solutions evaluation 1 . Inspiration of learning is important for university students and plays a major role in avoiding plagiarism. Students ho are interesting in learning and have solidification will not try to attempt plagiarism. In fact, they will try their best to achieve their goals. This inspiration of learning will not be achieved in a minute.
No, it builds up day by day as student’s education enhances. 2. Self-confidence: to be able to avoid plagiarism; students must trust in their work. This can be achieved by practicing and specifying considerable time in the project or the assignment. There is a weakness in this solution, those students who does not trust in their work ‘even though they spent some time preparing it’ need to get enrolled in courses to develop their confidence which takes a sizable time. 3. Dividing the work: dividing the work into small pieces seems to be the easiest thing that the student can do, but this is not true.
Students have a lot of courses and they require a large amount of time, this makes it difficult for the student to manage the time required for each course. This skill needs to be used carefully to get the maximum benefit. 4. Understanding plagiarism: is the most important part in avoiding plagiarism. It is difficult for the student to understand all the cases that constitute plagiarism. To get a problem solved oh need first understand how, any why it have been established, and then try introduce solutions to get it solved. B. Teachers’ solutions evaluation 1 .
Teachers’ decline of popularized papers: this should be applied in all universities, and accepting popularized work should be considered as invalidation of university regulation and rules. It is an important factor that without it, student plagiarism cannot and will not be terminated. 2. Using “Turn it in”: University of Botswana (PUB) students has been questioned about their opinions regarding the use of “Turn tin” in combating plagiarism, 65% of he 8 students responded with belief that the software would encourage them and their classmates to put more effort into their research and do their assignments in proper way (Bataan, 2010).
However, 35% of the students responded that they hated the software because it would lead them to fail (Bataan, 2010). One student said: “we are not here only to pursue our degrees, but also to have a decent living. If this is used, it will hinder us from graduating on time. ” (Bataan, 2010, P. 7). The teachers welcomed the use of “Turning” in combating plagiarism since it will help them to identify plagiarism asses in quicker and faster way (Bataan, 2010). However, the teachers also addressed that they did not consider that the software alone would help in eliminating plagiarism amongst students (Bataan, 2010).