Causes of Plagiarism Essay -- Plagiarism Essays

Plagiarism has become a major issue among university students around the world. Academic misconduct has been a concern to those teaching at the universities. Hence, to prevent this from occurring the educational bodies have implemented measures to avoid plagiarism. Presently, the newly recruited students are informed of the consequences of plagiarism and that stern action is in place (Ashworth, Bannister, & Thorne,1997,p.1). However, plagiarism can be divided into two parts: deliberate and inadvertent. Presented here are the reasons why student plagiarism is considered quite high at western universities, even though many of the university students do not mean to cheat. There are three reasons as follows: (1) lack of clear understanding about the concept; (2) lack of knowledge about citation and referencing skills; and (3) poor time management. The first focus is on definitions of plagiarism and the differences between two types of plagiarism, reasons for inadvertent plagiarism, and l astly why international students have became the most plagiarising students in western universities. Plagiarism is one type of academic misconduct which is treated seriously in today’s universities. Plagiarism is defined as † literary theft, stealing ( by copying ) the words or ideas of someone else and passing them off as one’s own without crediting the source†(Handa & Power, n.d., p.66). For example, use of any material which is taken from any sources, such as books, electric journals, the Internet, or from other people’s work comprises plagiarism. There are two types of plagiarism: (1) deliberate (intention to cheat); (2) inadvertent (no intention to cheat). If students do it on purpose or intend to cheat, it means that the students have cheated... ...), 471-488. http://www.elearning.tcu.edu/resources/faculty/turnitin/Why%20Students%20Plagiarize.pdf Peter Ashwortha, Philip Bannistera, Pauline Thornea, "Guilty in whose eyes? University students' perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment" Studies in Higher Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, 1997 Roig, Miguel (1997) "Can Undergraduate Students Determine Whether Text Has Been Plagiarized," The Psychological Record: Vol. 47: Iss. 1, Article 7. Available at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/tpr/vol47/iss1/7 Walker, John. "Student Plagiarism in Universities: What are we Doing About it?" Higher Education Research & Development, Volume 17, Issue 1, 1998 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0729436980170105?journalCode=cher20 Wang, Y. (2008). University student online plagiarism. International Journal on E-Learning, 7(4), 743-757.