The Great Plagiarism Debate Why Students, Politicians, Writers Still Do It

The Great Plagiarism Debate: Why Students, Politicians, Writers Still Do It? What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before. Mark Twain From editor The Great Plagiarism Debate publication is essentially a discussion started by the cheating industry insider as opposed (or supported) by the teachers, professors and opinion leaders from within the academic circles. By the Great Plagiarism Debate publication we kick off the Edusson Breakthrough Challenge a ghostwriter platform’s home run towards a editing and proofreading face of ours. The challenge purports to translate platform’s more than 1000 academic freelance writers and (their families) to essay editing / proofreading through client education and social promotion. Actions and results are documented and reported monthly. Have your say in the Great Plagiarism Debate? We are happy to hear many different voices, publish your opinions and amplify them through the social. Please send your message at  [email  protected]  to the editor and join the discussion in the Social channels. Plagiarism is known as copying others text of ideas without attribution. ‘Word-for-word’ plagiarism (cut and paste) is by far the most common case in the college settings. Institutionalized plagiarism implies relations between parties (weaker and stronger) where the stronger one takes the work of a weaker without credit in the situation where plagiarism looks normal or legitimate course of conduct (Martin 1994). Ghostwriting is regarded as an  institutionalized plagiarism  and is form of business transaction where there is an exchange of text for money without attribution of a ghost as a creator. Institutionalized plagiarism is usually hard to detect as the weaker party is deterred from taking actions by power relations (intimidation, money, etc.) Plagiarism is a hot story for journalists because it often raises the question of equality and justice. Likewise, if, for example, a professor can take away with by plagiarizing from his assistants, why should students be penalized? Plagiarism has been rendered as unethical in the universities and is regarded as a form of cheating. If exposed, moral stigma makes students frame stories and reinterpret their practice. Often times moral stigma makes it hard to understand the actual motivation behind student plagiarism. Why students do it? Hiding and explaining away Arguably, plagiarism is more widespread among students than most of us think. Let’s try analyze why plagiarism is so popular. Without going much further into motivation, we hold that plagiarism is so widespread among students because: 1) it is hard to detect plagiarists, 2) it is hard to prove it was intentional, and 3) the consequences of plagiarism for students are mostly light. Plagiarism detection software (TurnitIn, etc) that is being widely adopted in US and UK colleges was aimed at prevention of copying from a peer another student. The software would check the text against the database of papers and detects similarity. It can be said that detection tools may protect the education system from students copying their works from peers and a magic circle of free paper databases. Yet, it can’t detect whether or not an original (clean) text was actually written by a student. Likewise, ghostwriting or institutional plagiarism is especially hard to detect because it is a business transaction: ghosts write original content and voluntary resign their ger. The founder of  BLOGS FOR THE NEW WORKPLACE Connect with Barry on LinkedIn. Bobbi Johnson I teach K-2 Special Education in a PBIS/Alternative school and I am a Graduate Student in the Masters Degree program at Ball State University in Applied Behavior Analysis with an Emphasis in Autism. I have a special interest in creating educational materials. Connect with Bobbi on LinkedIn. What are the main reasons for plagiarism in college? Mark Barnes: Plagiarism happens at all levels because students see no value in the assignment and they dont understand the impact and consequences of plagiarizing. Barry L. Davis: I suspect to some degree it is a function of the class load of students and their decision to take action to reduce the time involved in completing assignments. The pressure for superior grades could factor into this as well. Bobbi Johnson: I think one reason is its just so easy now to plagiarize. When I was in college, we had to go to the library and do research in actual books and journals to get our info. We learned in high school how to paraphrase those sources. Now its so easy to look for your sources on your couch and just copy and paste the info into your paper. I dont know that kids are taught in depth how to accurately paraphrase or maybe if they are, they arent told how serious it is to plagiarize, like we were. Do you think plagiarism education is adequate? Mark Barnes: Plagiarism education in the K-12 world should be improved. It is only an ancillary piece of the research unit, which is almost universally taught in isolation. Research should be taught across subjects and plagiarism education should be emphasized in all grades, beginning in elementary school. Barry L. Davis: In the universities where I teach, each course syllabus includes a comprehensive overview of plagiarism. The universitys stand on such practice is clearly outlined there as well as on the primary website. Bobbi Johnson: I dont think kids are educated well on the adequate on plagiarism. High profile Plagiarism: how does it affect student cheating perception? Mark Barnes: Most kids dont understand it, so I dont think it affects their perception at all. Kids need to hear the consequences more than once. It needs to be an ongoing discussion. I knew a student in college who was forced to repeat his entire senior year because he plagiarized a major paper. Thats a monumental consequence in many ways, including lost tuition dollars, lost job experience, and integrity damage that could have cost the person numerous job opportunities. I would like to think that it is a discouragement to the practice, although the media often overstates the incidents. This could cause students to feel it is not really the problem it purports to be, and thus practice it to some degree. Barry L. Davis: Not really. If we are talking about TRUE plagiarism (verbatim use of anothers words without attribution) I believe it should be made public, However, I have seen and heard of juicy stories that were merely use of similar phrases or concepts that were framed as plagiarism due to the high visibility of the individuals involved. Bobbi Johnson: I think the youth today are the entitlement generation. Even when they see high profile plagiarism, they may think those people were just stupid to be caught. And that they are entitled to do the bare minimum on their papers.