Is it educators who should be blamed for the huge number of students paying for everything from one page responses to their professors to complete thesis dissertations. Is it the lazy or incapable students fault? Aren’t the “Papermill” companies that supply the resources that actually complete the work the ones to blame? I think it's fairly obvious that this kind of business is unethical. . I would never think about paying someone to write a paper for me, because then I would be cheating myself out of my own education. While we are pointing fingers, maybe the blame should be on the parents of the students for not teaching them any morals and letting them think that cheating is acceptable. I think that schools and even professional paper-writers are not to blame. Right off the bat, there is a huge problem with blaming teachers for students’ plagiarism. Basically, it’s an attempt to blame one person for another’s actions and that goes against the very concept that our ethics and laws are built upon. That being said, students do raise several issues as to how teachers may be unaware that they encourage plagiarism. This includes assignment choices, workload, and lack of individual attention. This attitude has even been supported by academic papers and it highlights the fact that many students feel almost led into plagiarism by an education system that makes it extremely tempting at a time where it is also extremely easy. (1) Why is it the fault of the educator that their students cheat? Blaming teachers for plagiarism is outrageous. While there is more that teachers can and should do, blaming them isn’t the answer. There is even a real story of a college professor who caught 20% of his class cheating and was rewarded by the smallest... ... middle of paper ... ... staff can help students know how to use and acknowledge their sources.” (2) We need to find a way to work together and support students from all aspects. We need to value teachers and respect them. We need to stop seeing test scores as the only means to judge how well a student is doing. We need to ban the companies that provide the writers who write for a fee. Instead get back to the basics of guiding students to be the creative and capable thinkers that the future will require. For the majority of students, I am sure that they would write their own papers if they knew how to. Let’s even educate parents so that they can help stop the rapidly growing instances of plagiarism starting as early as elementary school. Teaching children at an early age to think for their selves try their hardest and do their own works would solve a lot of the problems around plagiarism.
The article Cybercheats clearly shows the cause/use of plagiarism. Students of all ethnic backgrounds use plagiarism. However it also shows how most schools are trying to crack down. Two employees from National Institutes of Health actually have a program that can decode essays that may have some sort of plagiarism. It is clearly obvious that the students who do indeed use this from of cheating have no real values. As Michael Miller, a teacher at Georgetown University, says, "It's really up to the individual reader to do with the information what they will, good or evil. I belong to a school that says teach people to do the right thing and then turn'em loose." It seems that if you are adult enough to actually attend collage then you are adult enough to handle the pressures and responsibilities that come along with it. For most cases the use of plagiarism is clearly used by students who don't know the value/capabilities of there own. They also aren't usually aware of the consequences.
That stomach churning feeling of guilt for many seems to appear as a small price to pay when completing an act of academic dishonesty. Colleen Wenke wrote an essay on cheating eighteen years ago called “Too Much Pressure”. In the past fifty years, the number of students who admit to cheating has increased fifty to seventy percent(Gaffe). Many people wonder what leads the students to make this unjust decision. Today, the reason for a rise in cheaters is because of how easy it has become, leading many students to the false conclusion that they aren’t breaking any rules; It is simply viewed as a shortcut to success in the classroom and beyond.
When I think of plagiarism, I imagine a person literally stealing from another individual. The term plagiarism is derived from the Latin word plagi rius, which essentially represents the felony of kidnapping. An individual who kidnaps anothers work is a felon. Obviously, this form of larceny is not as immoral as the form for which one can be imprisoned; however, most educators and honest students view plagiarism in this manner. Within education I conceive that there are two kinds of plagiarism: copying a paper word-for-word and not providing the correct recognition to the original author when utilizing their composition. I believe that each situation of plagiarism should be considered serious enough to investigate in order to determine an appropriate consequence. If an individual is not clear on how to cite works properly within the context of an essay, then the omission should be determined non-intentional and, therefore, not subject to punishment. However, if someone deliberately duplicates somebody elses work, then he or she should be reprimanded. This form of pilfering usually occurs in the higher levels of education, as in high school or college.
Plagiarism takes various forms. A student may cheat doing something as extreme as purchasing a paper, hiring someone to write a paper or turning in a paper freely provided by a friend. Many students unknowingly commit Plagiarism by failing to properly cite their sources crediting the authors. Still others cite, but plagiarize by coping much too much and writing far, far too little of their own synthesized thoughts and ideas. Students must be careful about copying too much. If a paper is mostly other writers’ material, that can be considered Plagiarism, even if the student credits their sources.
Another point that he makes in his article is that parents of all types of students are also causing plagiarism to become more prevalent (Perez-Pena). He states that “Experts say that along with students, schools, and technology, parents are also to blame”
Although when you are younger and you get to know that plagiarizing is illegal and the consequences can severe, cases of students getting caught in the act are rare. This is also one part of the overall problem, schools and teachers do not focus enough upon this topic. They carry on, unnoticeable of anything, and when students see this, they will get an indication of “Sure I can do this, there are no consequences”. “If people are given wiggle room, they’ll take it” . The “carelessness” is also shown in a survey made by Donald
Most students choose to steal ideas from other students because they think the other ideas are better in terms of explanation and articulation. I say this because anyone is capable to create new ideas but the difficulty rises when you have to format it into a writing style. Even so, this does not make it acceptable behavior and students should not use this as an excuse to continue doing it. We can correlate this with the student merely lacking interest in the material and taking the easy route in order to finish. Anyone who plagiarises is impeding themselves and everyone else around them from thinking outside the box and thus creating new ideas. We can easily point out the short term effects of copying someone else’s work but what about the long term effects of it? The long term effects will eventually affect how we are evolving intellectually, physically, and emotionally. I believe it affects humans in an intellectual way merely because when we copy others’ work
Academic dishonesty, specifically cheating and plagiarism, recently has increased in popularity. Students often justify unethical academic behavior. Technological innovations, like the cellular telephone, have provided students with new methods of cheating. Plagiarism has also been influenced through technologies, specifically internet companies have emerged that provide unethical solutions to academic assignments.
Students that copy other student's work are hurting themselves in the long run. Their creativity level drops every time they copy or have someone else do their work. After a while of copying and forging, the student's ability to think creatively and successfully becomes next to nothing. "Educators must continue to socialize students of all ages about the importance of maintaining high ethical standards," (Glazer 222). The educational system is where students learn these tricks and proceed to carry them on into there professional careers. Corners are too easy to cut these days, and in order for people to keep their minds as functional as possible, they need to do their own work. It is too easy for students to buy a students paper that had the same class the quarter before, reword it a little, and turn it in as their own. Students are no longer able to write a fictional story by themselves because the computer or someone else can do it for them.
Plagiarism, or the unaccredited use of another's work or ideas, has become more and more of a problem in recent times than it was in the past. According to statistics found in a survey conducted by the Free Press, 58% of high school students let someone copy their work in 1969, but by 1989 this number had risen to 97%. The expansion of the World Wide Web and the number of people accessing the Web on a regular basis has caused an epidemic of plagiarism in this country, especially among students. This is a serious problem that must be addressed because many students feel that if they are not getting in trouble for cheating, than it is okay.
Cheating on academic work is a serious issue that most students admit to doing at some point in their academic career. Elite students are surprisingly the culprits of cheating, but hide it well. (Romm, para 5) Cheating is such a large issue that “70% of students from a sample of 1,800 from nine campuses said they had cheated at least once during their college careers.” (Schneider, para 9) Students cheat on academic work because of different, ongoing pressures in their lives. Understanding the student’s motives and pressures are essential to preventing cheating from occurring in the future. Students cheat for different reasons specific to them regarding their priorities, pressures and because of how easy it has become. Even though eliminating cheating will not happen, there are actions that educational professionals can and should take to prevent most of it from happening so often. Therefor cheating problems are minimized and have a positive impact on the student’s education and understanding of concepts.
This form of cheating occurs more often than it should because students may not feel confident in their own work; they are constantly being reminded by society that they must do their best and receive the highest academic achievements. So why has society shamed students for taking such actions when society is partly to blame for the situation. But society is not to blame alone; students themselves are also held at fault, because it is their self-doubt and lack of time management that result in them plagiarizing. If students had the experience of submitting actual personal work, they would understand that being praised by their peers is more appreciable and could add to their overall self-worth. Students would also be proud of the grade they receive because it is one they truly deserve for their hard work and not for the work what someone else has already done. Students do not see how easy they could commit plagiarism without knowing they are plagiarizing. It is as simple as using a quote and not giving credit to those who deserves it. Students also do not seem to know that there are different forms of plagiarism, that there is not just one, but five types of
Plagiarism is a very serious topic to be dealt with, due to the fact that it can damage one’s future very severely. It is done often by students in high school and other institutes such as universities and colleges. People plagiarize intentionally and sometimes even unintentionally. The people who plagiarize intentionally are people who don’t really care about their future and career. The people who plagiarize unintentionally are people who do not cite their work properly and completely. Most people that plagiarize do not get a good mark and most likely have to face consequences such as failure, suspension or the chance of being expelled. In conclusion it is believed that one should not put his/her future at risk and try to expand their mind through the process of critical thinking independently, so they do not have to make the mistake of plagiarizing.
There are many reasons why students choose to plagiarize. These students in general are students that seem to procrastinate or do the easiest thing possible which is to just copy something from someone who has already done their research on the subject.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and a growing trend in our society today. Some may associate plagiarism with the idea of taking someone else’s writing and making it their own. In fact plagiarism involves anything that is copied or taken and said to be of your own work. Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work, as by not crediting the author”. In fact this definition covers all types of cheating and misrepresentation of ones own work. There are many numbers and statistics that can be found on the amount of individuals that have admitted to cheating. Perhaps the most astounding number is one that was reported by Moeck in 2002 aloft of 40% of higher education students commit academic dishonesty. This number I’m sure has grown since this report and will continue to grow with the development of the Internet. There are a number of ideas and strategies that can be employed in order to stop this ever-growing phenomenon. As teachers and adults, we are responsible for stopping this trend and educating students about the consequences and dangers of plagiarism. I believe there are a variety of reasons individuals plagiarize. First, students are insecure with their own ability; they don’t believe they can do the work therefore they take others. Second, students believe they can get away with the act because they know others who have plagiarized, and there were not any consequences. Lastly, students are uneducated on what plagiarism is and do not know the consequences of their actions if they commit an act. These ideas will be the focus of the position taken on plagiarism in today’s academic society.