Research paper on Plagiarism
The importance of studying plagiarism for university students
Introduction
According to McCabe (2010), 25.3% university students admit to “Paraphrasing or copying a few sentences of material from a written source without footnoting or referencing it in a paper.” When the students enroll the college or university, first at all, the students study about plagiarism. Although they have to study about plagiarism before their study, plagiarism is still reported among university students. Plagiarism is involved in academic integrity. Integrity is defined as “The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles”(oxford dictionary)、 and Academic integrity contains “plagiarizing”, “cheating”, “stealing”, and “lying” (cited from The Mason honor code). In particular, plagiarism is the most important concept in these terms because the students who plagiarized might punished severely. Plagiarism is copying and pasting from another recourses without citation as if it is own idea. Why do the university student have to pay attention to academic integrity? Academic integrity is important because of these reasons: academic integrity can give the article credibility; the students can learn how to time management; and the students can understand deeply through paraphrase.
Previous studies
Previous studies about plagiarism can divide three categories: the studies what tried to reveal the causes of plagiarism, the studies what tried to provided how to avoid plagiarism, and the studies what showed why plagiarism is important. Comas and Sureda (2010) investigated 727 undergraduate students at the University of the Balearic Islands. They found the idea that plagiarism caused because students do not have enough time to deal with assignments. In other words, students cannot manage their time as well. Moreover, there are other causes that teachers give excessive number of assignments. In addition, when students are not interested in the assignment, it caused the plagiarism. Furthermore, being easier to get some resources by ICT leads the plagiarism.
Vardi (2012) attempted to answer whether a critical writing approach affect the incidence of plagiarism or not. He examined 2500 students in an Australian university. He found that critical writing approach improved student’s referencing skill. Finally, he suggested that critical writing approach plays an important role to avoid plagiarism, so that the relation between the knowledge and skill of citation and plagiarism should be thought thoroughly.
These previous studies showed that teaching how to avoid plagiarism plays an important role in higher education. However, students have to understand why they have to learn about plagiarism because if they understand it completely, it works them to avoid plagiarism more carefully.
Discussion
Based on three reasons, which are: academic integrity can give the article credibility; the students can learn how to time management; and the students can understand deeply through paraphrase, the importance to learn about plagiarism is revealed in this part. Students should pay attention to academic integrity because academic integrity can give the article credit. Citing and referencing and paraphrasing in correct way in own discipline provide authority for the student’s writing assignment. Moreover, if the students plagiarize, it invades copyright of another research. Badke (2003) explained that copyright is the prevention to avoid making copies of published works without permission. If the students breached a copyright, students will get severe punishment. For example, in Japan, there is a big problem about plagiarism last year. At first, a researcher announced that she found a new cell called ”STAP cell”. However, it was revealed she was cheating and plagiarizing after she published. Eventually, the university decided to get rid of her PhD. In the academic field, the writing assignment has to be credible. Thus, students have to learn how to avoid plagiarism.
Secondly, the students can learn how to manage their time. For avoiding plagiarism, students have to paraphrase other sources. It might take much time because they have to use their own words. Comas and Sureda (2010) mentioned students think that plagiarism is easy way to deal with a lot of assignment even they do not have much time. This indicates students plagiarize because they try to finish their writing assignment without making any efforts. Recently, since Internets spread rapidly, students plagiarize more easily because they can find resource easily and they can copy it. Comas and Sureda (2010) also insist students struggle to deal with a large amount of assignment because of their lack of time management. Although students tend to plagiarize, the instructor expected the students to deal with their large amount assignments by managing their time. Consequently, university students have to be aware of plagiarism because they can learn a time management from this.
Thirdly, the students can understand deeply through paraphrase. Badke (2003) insisted the professor gave writing assignment because they are interested in students’ interpretation skill. In addition, Vardi (2012) insisted paraphrase is a part of critical thinking. This could mean paraphrasing to avoid plagiarism helps university students getting the academic skills. Moreover, plagiarism relates with students outcome. For example, according to Vardi (2012), students who cite another resource correctly got high distinction. While 37% students could get distinction or high distinction after tutor teach about plagiarism, 74% students could not get distinction before tutor teach the knowledge about citation and references because of the lack of knowledge of citation (Vardi, 2012). Professor gave the students assignments to measure how the students understand the classroom contents. Thus, students should learn about plagiarism carefully because it helps the students to understand the classroom contents.
Conclusion
University students have to pay attention to plagiarism because plagiarism invades academic integrity and the articles’ credible; the students can learn how to manage their time through dealing with assignment by own word; and the students can understand the article deeply through paraphrasing and citation. These skills what is gotten through avoiding plagiarism is useful not only academic life but also social life because social life needs to these critical writing skills. University instructors should teach how to avoid plagiarism thoroughly. Furthermore, the future researchers should define the rule of plagiarism because the standard of plagiarism is very ambiguous and this leads to inadvertent plagiarism by university students. It is necessary to organizing the environment for plagiarism brightly due to make university students pay attention to avoid plagiarism.
References
Comas-forgas, R., & Sureda-negre, J. (2010). Academic plagiarism: Explanatory factors from students’ perspective. Journal of Academic Ethics, 8(3), 217-232. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10805-010-9121-0
Donald McCabe (2010). McCabe Academic Integrity Survey Report. (Texas Tech University). Retrieved from https://www.depts.ttu.edu/provost/qep/2005-2010/docs/McCabe_Academic_Integrity_Report_Cover.pdf
Iris Vardi (2012). Developing students’ referencing skills: a matter of plagiarism, punishment and morality or of learning to write critically? Higher Education Research and Development, 31 (6), 921 – 930.
Integrity, Oxford dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/integrity
Plagiarism, George Mason University. Academic intergrity. Retrieved from http://oai.gmu.edu/
William B. Badke (2003). Beyond the answer sheet : academic success for international students.