Plagiarism - Is it a problem

Plagiarism is major problem in academic writing. Plagiarism may be considered a form of stealing. This raises a number of eyebrows. Is it stealing? Stealing what? Yes, taking someone’s academic writing and ideas and pretending that you are the originator of it is thieving of ideas. The University of the Witwatersrand’s “official definition of plagiarism is the unjustified taking of the ideas, thoughts and writings contained in a particular source and submitting it as if the ideas, thoughts and writings are your own, whereas in fact they are not” (http://web.wits.ac.za/Library/ResearchResources/SubjectPortals/Plagiarim+Portal). To avoid plagiarism, one has to acknowledge the source of ideas.
Muller (unpublished) indicates that plagiarism can be by choice or sometimes not intended. The reasons for deliberate plagiarism can be attributed to number of issues such as one taking short cuts to do assignments, not comprehending what is required of in a given task, cheating, the tendency at or campus tendency and previous learning experiences. The internet and many other electronic databases have a lot of many peoples’ ideas which can easily be copied or cut and pasted when one is writing an article or an assignment. It is the shortest way of doing things and is the wrong way. From previous learning experiences, some institutions, schools, lecturers and teachers would not have picked or corrected a learner who would have plagiarized. This would have become a norm for one to plagiarize. The student might be ignorant of this inadvertently, that is, may be ignorant of referencing techniques and inadvertently plagiarise. In such scenarios, the educators have a tremendous task not to be punitive. What then can be done to avoid plagiarism?
The educators should assist the students with good academic writing skills which will include proper citation of sources. Most of the first year courses can deliberately assist the students to do their “green” assignments, that is, assist students with best practices of writing assignments with correct acknowledgement of sources of ideas especially with the first assignment. The students can be referred to our library services where they can be assisted in correct ways of referencing.
Plagiarism can be curbed. In my next blog, I would like to focus on how software such as TurnItIn or Safe Assign can be used to detect plagiarism.
NB: The blog checked with University of the Witwatersrand TurnItIn standalone site and gave a score of 0% (green colour code)
References:
Muller, C. (unpublished). Plagiarism and the use of Safe Assign. Wits School of Education.
University of the Witwatersrand. The Library Copyright Services Office. Copyright & Plagiarism – Ignorance of the law is no excuse! Accessed [28 April 2011].