Zachary Theroff

Writing 121

Unit 2: Inquiry-Based Research

16 February 2012

Plagiarism and Academic in

Academic Plagiarism can be also called cheating. It is an action of using other 

author's imitation and presents them other as your own one. Academic plagiarism is 

considered as academic dishonesty. People who did it may include students, professor or researchers. People who did academic plagiarism cannot improve their academic.

Currently, because of most people own a computer, academic plagiarism has developed,rapidly on internet, where information appears as electronic text. So, people did  the work easily by coping and pasting from webpage or books. So, more and more schools have paid much attention to the academic plagiarism, this problem will become more dramatic. Before I came to the America, in china, almost all of the universities will have a plagiarism on the final exam in China, this condition is really seriously, many teachers have try their best to stop this happening, however, it has not available. As such, the main group that should be concerned with this issue is students in university, because in the university, there are much more assignments for students to accomplish, so students will suffer much pressure, and have less time to do these assignments independently. Do the universities have the effective approaches to solve it? Maybe many universities have no correct measure to limit the plagiarism. “The Internet age has brought tremendous opportunities for students and teachers in teaching and learning, and yet has also brought challenges to academic integrity”.(WanLu,2008). In my opinion, I want to know what measures should the university take can limit the plagiarism at least as much as possible. At the same time, the plagiarism not only harmful for the academic problem, but also can have negative influence in the society. But, why the university can not forbid the plagiarism forever? What factors cause the plagiarism always happened in the campus?

In the article, the title is “ Digital Cheating and plagiarism in Schools”, written by Jane Ma, he talked about that some reasons for young people to cheat on the Internet, and suggestions for teachers who work with students to reduce digital plagiarism. The Internet has become an important part of young people’s lives. It creates wonderful opportunities for teaching and learning, and yet, at the same time, has contributed to the deterioration of ethics among young people. This article talked about that the Internet brings the convenience for people to plagiarism. According to the author survey, Digital cheating and plagiarism are problems among college students as well. “The Center for Academic Integrity has conducted a nationwide survey in 60 universities, among 50,000 undergraduates, since 2002. The study found that on most campuses, 70% of the students admitted to some cheating in the past years. About one-fourth of the students admitted to serious cheating on tests. Where the Internet is concerned, 77% of students thought that cutting and pasting one or two sentences from online without appropriate citations was not a serious issue”. Based on this, although the Internet is convenient for the people’s life, it also becomes the efficient tools for plagiarism. Furthermore, the author talked about that “human beings are social creatures”, people need to the social interaction. While the Internet has become a daily part of young people’s lives, at the same time, it also become for the social interaction. Therefore, the Internet can be viewed as a learning environment where students engage in eloquent learning that is relevant to their own personal interests, which can, in contrast, form a social community that encourages people plagiarism.

I attempted to find another analysis of the plagiarism. This led me to read a meaningful article that broadens my horizons. John willey wrote the article which called “Twenty-First Century Forces Shaping Academic Integrity”, I believe that the article is concerned about the people should improve the consciousness of the academic integrity. In the article, it talked about that despite lingering and changing disease symptoms, organizational responses to student academic misconduct in the twenty-first century have not changed substantially from those taken in previous decades. The legacy of the honor code lives on in the rule compliance and integrity strategies. ‘That is, a focus on stopping students from cheating without considering the complexity of academic integrity could be in the end counterproductive to the teaching and learning imperative. For example, the author celebrated the fact that “If academic integrity is a social phenomenon, then several questions are intimated.(Willy)”, many students have not realized that collaborating on home is ethical. Therefore, the university often makes use of the advance technology to control the educational experience, for example, most of students like to work together, and forming their study group. However, there will appear some problems. Because, some students will give up thinking deeply, in the contrast, they often copy other members’ results about the assignments. These main differences present ethical dilemmas for students because their choice to comply with the instructor’s rules so as not to cheat may conflict with other choices that could help them learn, ask the friend for help, or honor the communal nature of knowledge. Thus, a student’s solution

of such an ethical puzzles may not reflect a purpose to or plan a morally corrupt choice even if their behaviors conflict with the instructor’s expectations So, it damages the academic integrity. Many university have take some measures such as institutional sanctioning or appeals to student morality and integrity to stop students from cheating, then, may not be effective.

Another article called “the pragmatic forms of Student Plagiarism”, written by Christos Pappos. I consider this article will be effectively help the university reduce the plagiarism. In the article, the author talked that evaluate the research findings on using “Plagiarism Detection Services” in educational settings(Pappos). For that purpose, conceptual issues about plagiarism were examined, pragmatic instances of student plagiarism were listed, and the device strategies on detecting plagiarism were reported. But, their adoption in educational settings is often troublesome. However, there are some faults about the Plagiarism Detection Services. While it is easy to distinguish a case of whole plagiarism as malpractice, we only have an approximately common view about acceptable and unacceptable practice in general. For example, “original text should be paraphrased in order to avoid the charge of plagiarism, yet it is unclear how much it should be altered”. Furthermore, “the fact that ideas are flexible and changeful”, therefore it is not always easy to origin from the author. Base on this, this article support the perspective that Plagiarism Detection Services.

Employment can only have positive conclusion within a various kinds of strategy to promote academic integrity in an educational institution. After reading this article, I have known that some advance technology can control the plagiarism in some degree. But, there also need to make some improvement the drawbacks.

I also found another article called a “working together and academic integrity”, written by David Taylor, I think the article effectively explain the difference between the Plagiarism and group study. After reading, people will know more information to avoid the plagiarism when working together. In the article, it talks about that when school emphasized the “developing students’ transferable skills”, group working is creating challenges in ensuring the academic integrity of individually assessed coursework. The author talk about that There is evidence that students in different

academic disciplines or institutions have different levels of ‘cheating’ behaviors, of

which plagiarism and collusion are a part, and it has been suggested that the most

common types of cheating behaviors tend to be those around sharing work with

peers, including actions such as copying assignments or giving another student the

answers. At the same time, students often buying assignments and coercing others into doing assignments, “they are less clear about the distinction between legitimate collaboration and collusion”. The author celebrate the fact that the definition of the collaboration is working together to share information or material that may be included in the final version of an assignment. The point at which this becomes Plagiarism is difficult to define and is dependent on the norms of individual establishments or markers. It is not unusual for institutions to have a very specific and rigorous definition of plagiarism but to be less clear about what constitutes plagiarism and delineates the boundary between what is acceptable and not acceptable. The author also citied that although the students have known academic misconduct will have negative consequences, they will somehow unwitting cheat is not founded. Therefore, most universities encourage the students working together, but in order to avoid the plagiarism, the university should weight more on working together.

Finally, I also read an article called “What Don’t They Know”, this article written by Troy A. Voelker. After reading, some students also obscure on the plagiarism information. this reason will make the plagiarism happen frequently. Some university use the plagiarism quiz to complete students some knowledge about plagiarism. In the article, the author asserted that although a great deal of research examines attitudes, motives, and demographic factors related to academic dishonesty, there has been little empirical investigation regarding what students actually know about plagiarism. The authors identify significant and important gaps in this knowledge and discuss important implications for universities and society as a whole. Plagiarism may be a crime of ignorance, the author acknowledge tit is important to determine what students actually know about plagiarism. Then the author make a research to examine that the students were assessed on their knowledge of plagiarism using an online quiz embedded in the web portion of their course. Students were informed about the existence of the survey at the start of the semester and were made aware that their performance on the plagiarism quiz would have no adverse effect on their overall grade. The author reports the specific data to claim that the undergraduate and graduate students have relatively similar plagiarism knowledge; they also do not know parallel knowledge about plagiarism.

unit2 draft