Friday, February 13, 2009

What is Plagiarism?

What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of others and presenting them as your own. Plagiarism is a
type of intellectual theft. It can take many forms, from deliberate cheating to accidentally copying from
a source without acknowledgement.
Whenever you use the words or ideas of another person in your work, you must acknowledge where
they came from. You can avoid plagiarism by following the suggestions outlined in this guide.
One of the contradictions of academic writing is that while you are expected to read, research and refer to
experts and authorities, you are also expected to produce ‘original’ work. However, it is important to recognise
that all scholarship involves understanding, researching, and expanding on the work of others to some degree.
Most of the academic work undergraduate students do at university will be based on the words, information and
ideas of other writers. In this case, an original contribution might consist mainly of selecting, ordering, summarising
and interpreting what others have said. So, it is important to learn how to reference properly—that is, how to
specify clearly and precisely what your debts are and how to acknowledge them. Then your own contribution
can be clearly identified and appreciated.

Plagiarism
It is the act of taking someone else's ideas or written word and passing it off as one's own. It is very common in student life. Student get other ideas or copy from internet and show their teacher as their own work.
Example: A neighbor handing out copies of the Gettysburg Address and claiming he wrote it himself.
Example: A student with a term paper copies text directly from web sites or books.
Following is the site from where you can get lots of information about plagiarism and its types
Did You Know?
Did You Known What Is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is one of the most widely discussed topics nowadays. In fact it has become a root problem of all of the educational institutes and the research centers. Even in the other fields of life the issues of plagiarism are increasing rapidly like in the entertainment sector and in the music also. Most of the people does not know about the concept of plagiarism which states that any act of copying someone’s other work and showing that as your own. There are many other facts which should be known to all of us and some of the main are as follows:
1. Did you know that plagiarism is a criminal act either you do it intentionally or unintentionally? It is considered to be the disobedience of copyright laws and the sufferings are also same.
2. The fine associated with copyright laws disobedience is in hundred thousands, therefore, for saving your time you can get the support to know if plagiarism is there in your work but in this way you can also save your money.
3. The instructors who actively participate in the research work carried out by the students are most likely to discourage the plagiarism among their students because students get motivated about the considerations of their teachers towards their work and they come up with their own creative ideas.
4. The reasons of plagiarism include the lack of interest of the students on a specific topic. It has been seen that the student does plagiarism in the subject in which he is weak or he has no interest.
5. Impact of plagiarism is not limited to the doer but also on many other personalities. The first sufferer is the owner of the material who gets hurt about the insecurity of his intellectual property, then the teacher who can lose the confidence in the student and also the other class mates who get disappointed about their grades which are strongly impacted by the other students.
6. At the educational level in most of the cases the students get the punishments like the relegations, expulsion or the heavy fines.
7. Did you know that in most of the institutions the rules related to plagiarism are handed to the students and the teachers at the time of the admission in the school?
8. The plagiarism statistics records available on different sources show that most of the students from good schools are the doers of plagiarism. Almost half of the students in the US are confused about the difference between the research and the plagiarism; therefore, they do not consider it wrong. Most of the students never identify the problem even after the continuous plagiarism because of the various ways of plagiarism. Many of the students in the US believe that plagiarism is necessary for getting good grades.
9. All of the material available on the Internet is not copyrighted and some of the material falls in the public domain category but still you are not allowed to make that work as your own.
Did you know that with the increasing number of users of Internet the rate of plagiarism is also increasing?
1. There are different types of software available for checking the duplication of the data like the http://www.duplichecker.com/. Such software are also contributing in decreasing the rate of plagiarism.
2. There are a number of cases in which although the references and the citation is present but still it is included in the unintentional plagiarism.
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What is Plagiarism
Plagiarism
There are various forms of corruption and one of them is the plagiarism, which is getting very common with the passage of time. There was a time when man was in search of discovering something. It was just because of the hard work, and efforts of man he put that he enabled himself to discover the world. However, do you think that it is happening nowadays? No not at all. Instead of going forward man is going backwards towards the dark ages. Instead of coming up with new innovative ideas, he is learning to get shortest routes. There are various reasons behind this fact, which will be explained later. Nevertheless, the main cause of all of the embedded problems is the plagiarism which will never allow us to grow and prosperous.


Forms Of Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the way of expressing someone else's work as your own. It is very common that a student wants to do his assignment and because of the shortage of time or lack of interest, he copies it from his friend. The curse of good grades and the lack of interest in the studies can lead a student to suffer from this criminal act. However, on the higher level where the professionals come together and try to develop in their business the new and innovative strategies, before the implication of the strategy they come to know that the competitor has already done that. This is also a form of plagiarism and if the companies do not have, the copyrights signed then there is not any solutions for it. Most of the critics have associated the reasons of the plagiarism with carelessness, laziness, lack of interest, and the arrogance. There are various forms of plagiarism like you can copy the whole text or idea, you can change the expression only, or even you can substitute the synonyms. Therefore, plagiarism is not less than a crime; if you start doing plagiarism in your early age then you will get the habit of following the shortest route without any creative thinking, which will lead you directly in the loss.
Controlling Plagiarism
Sometimes plagiarism is caused because of the teachers, because when they scold the students to come up with the innovative ideas, the students at that certain stage may not be able to do so and they do the plagiarism. What is plagiarism? It is known to all of the people who are qualified and dealing with different fields and professions. Even if you want to talk about the media, there are the cases when a movie is going to be launched in the near future and before that, another movie is launched having the same theme and concept. Even the name of the movie is associated with copyrights. The fact we want to highlight is that there are different forms of plagiarism and you cannot claim that there is not anything like plagiarism in your field. Even in the case of the innovation after the specific period of time the imitation is available in the market, the prior company has the first move advantage but the later one gets the advantage of no research and development cost. Because of the expansion of the Internet and because of the availability of free web content the plagiarism is increasing and the need of the hour is to check it as soon as possible. Therefore, there are different methods by which it has been tried to stop or at least lower the plagiarism.
Types of Plagiarism
Understanding Plagiarism
One of the most wide spread forms of corruption is plagiarism, which is the act of copying someone's other work and showing that as your own. The easy access to information and the online availability of the information through the online books and the libraries is playing an important role in enhancing the plagiarism. The easy access of knowledge is the demand of the age and the consequences are the threats to the development and prosperity of mankind. Therefore, for reducing the increasing rate of plagiarism certain steps are needed to be taken. There are many people, who are doing plagiarism because they want to get the quick access to the end results, prefer the time safety on the importance of work, and feel themselves as eligible for doing the certain task. Another group of people is doing the plagiarism because of the unawareness of the terminology and also because of the non-restricted environment. In all of the cases, the end result is the same and that is the disobedience of copyrights.
Reasons of Plagiarism
Most of the views and the discussions on the reasons of plagiarism also elaborate the fact that most of the people are not aware of the different types of plagiarism. You can take the example of a person who is going to write a research paper and he includes the statistical analysis of the other writer to show his own conclusions, although he is not claiming that data as his own but because of the lack of poor referencing he can be liable for copyrights. Plagiarism does not only include the copy of the words but also the copy of expressions, ideas, and many other creative tasks.
Types of Plagiarism
There are different types of plagiarism based on the intensity of plagiarism and some of them are as follows:
1. Minimal Plagiarism: It is type of plagiarism, which is most common in the educational sector and in this plagiarism the person do plagiarism by substituting the synonyms and editing the original text.
2. Substantial Plagiarism: Adding more details in the text and just changing the patterns of the text leads to substantial plagiarism.
3. Complete plagiarism: Without making any change in the data and presenting it as your own is the complete plagiarism. On the other hand there are the some other types of plagiarism, which must be never forgotten while coming up with any written article or idea like:
Sources Not Cited:
This include The Ghost Writer for simple copying, Photocopy, Potluck Paper in which different sources are used; Poor Disguise by changing the wordings and the outlook, Labor of Laziness in which different phrases are joined together to make your own work, and Self-Stealer in which the person can depict his own work as the new one in another article.
Sources Cited
There are some cases in which the writers quote the sources but still it is considered a plagiarism like; The Forgotten Footnote for only giving the writer's name and nothing other accessible link to the material, Misinformed for giving wrong references, Too-Perfect Paraphrase in which the proper way of writing down the copied work is not followed, Resourceful Citer in which the plagiarism is merged with the original work, and the differentiation is very vague, Perfect Crime in which along with the reference many things are without references which show the work original but in reality the work is the copied one.
Therefore, plagiarism can have the chance to exist in your original work. Hence, understanding the plagiarism and the types of plagiarism is very important for all of the writers in any field of life.
Avoiding Plagiarism
Brilliant minds and the intelligent personalities are praised by most of the people all around the world. Fortunately, our Lord has bestowed all of us the talented mind to think and discover. However, there are many people who do not believe on this fact and they always try to get the support of others to move in the society and fulfilling their responsibilities. Such people show carelessness and never work hard and find other easy ways around. One of the short and most common forms of the corrupted way is plagiarism. Some people in different fields are habitual of plagiarism and they are ignorant of the laws and regulations against plagiarism. Starting of plagiarism takes place at the lower level and with the passage of time increases each level; the rules and the regulations also get strict.

Reasons of Plagiarism
Before covering the part of avoiding plagiarism, it is very necessary to know the reasons to avoid it. As most of you are aware of the copyrights. Those who do not know can understand this term as the security against the illegal use of the text or any of your possessions. It is not necessary that it is applicable only on the written materials but also on the ideas, innovations, and many other things, even on the movie names and songs. The expanding Internet age is raising the issue of plagiarism not only in adults but also among the children and the young ones at the educational level. No doubt, it is somehow difficult to check plagiarism but there are many ways through which it can be avoided. The awareness can be cashed by telling the people about the punishments in the case of the disobedience of copyrights.
Avoiding Plagiarism
There are various ways through which plagiarism can be avoided; the first thing is as mentioned above about the awareness of the disobedience. Secondly, sometimes people have the excuses about the misconceptions of plagiarism; therefore such people must be made aware of the different forms of plagiarism. Creating the social awareness among the people about the plagiarism as a crime can also de-motivate them from using it. In the work task of the students, the time span can be increased so that the students can get the sufficient time to make their assignments because self-generated work is more valuable than the occupied work. In the research work proper references are required to avoid any form of plagiarism because in the end complete research paper can be rejected. Proper guidelines should be given to the subordinates in the offices so that the issue of plagiarism can be avoided. Everyone is creative but even a small admiration can inspire the people to come up with more creative tasks. Therefore, always try to appreciate the efforts of the person. The availability of the data on the Internet can be controlled through copyrights, and small charges can also be offered. The websites offering the free website contents can offer the quick registration process for providing the information. The free software to check the duplication of contents should be promoted like http://www.duplichecker.com/

In fact avoiding plagiarism is the need of the hour because such practices will always inhibit us from coming up with the new discoveries and innovative ideas. The only thing for avoiding plagiarism is the creation of awareness among the people about the results of the plagiarism. If such practices will not be continued then soon the drastic effects of Internet will come in front of us.
Preventing Plagiarism
Need Of Preventing Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the copying and cheating of the thoughts, ideas, writings and the innovations of the others. The increasing rate of plagiarism is directly contributed because of the increasing access to knowledge and competition in the society in all of the major and the small fields. But the issue is that if this practice continues then it is great threat towards the insecurity of the innovations. The only thing that most of the companies in their businesses can do is to get the first mover advantage but plagiarism is a great threat for them because the imitations can cause them high loses of spending on research and development. Therefore, preventing plagiarism is the need of the hour and it is possible through the implementation of the policies at all levels and in all of the fields.

Preventing Plagiarism At Educational Level
Especially, in the educational sector the plagiarism management is very important because students are the most common enhancers of plagiarism. Instead of doing their assignments by themselves like research papers, case studies and the other casual work, the students prefer to save their time and go for the copied work on the Internet. Therefore, plagiarism is becoming the issue in all fields because of the low time consumption, little hard work and more appreciation. The first thing to avoid the plagiarism is the unawareness of the main causes and the consequences of plagiarism. Many people even do not know the scope of plagiarism like they do not consider the synonyms substitution, copy without reference and the material from different sources as plagiarism. Therefore, for preventing plagiarism the first thing is to make the people aware of its reasons and the types.
In the educational institutes the prevention of plagiarism can be done by the teachers because they can motivate the students to come up with their innovative ideas and they can also keep an eye on the students while doing their research papers, projects and other assignments. The use of the software like Duplichecker should be enhanced to ensure the non duplication of the material. In fact such software can check the cases of the copied text but they are limited in their scope because the different types of plagiarism can not be handled as easily as the work is copied. The teachers can also provide the reference material to the students to limit their resources and for added information the proper references should be required because the references follow a particular format. The oral presentations and the regular meetings can also help to create check over the plagiarism. The fear of the low grades, poor time management and the bad perceptions can result the plagiarism among the students therefore, policies should be there regarding the fair grade system along with the average allocation of time for the assignments.
Other Strategies For Preventing Plagiarism
For checking of plagiarism at professional and the higher level the laws of copyrights have to be clearly issued and the awareness is the first requirement. The top brands in the business sector get the copyright before making the publicity of their brands. In this way the imitation is trying to be minimized. One of the major facts about plagiarism is that it is spreading because of the easy access to knowledge like the Internet, therefore, the knowledge available on the Internet should be accessed through the proper registration and sometimes a small subscription charges should be taken. There are many other options to avoid plagiarism but the best way is to increase the awareness about the reasons, consequences and the preventions.
Why Students Plagiarize?
Plagiarism Among The Students
Plagiarism is getting very common with the expansion of Internet and easy access of knowledge. Instead of coming up with their own and innovative ideas people prefer to copy the ideas of the others, because it is the most simple and easy way to cheat and imitate the ideas. In most of the businesses, the research and development cost is saved through the plagiarism while in the educational sector the time of the students is saved in this manner. However, this is not a legal way, no doubt, you can use the arguments in material of the others by getting the ideas of others but it should be referred properly, so that the copyrights may not be disrupted. Plagiarism is the presentation of the idea and the wording of someone else with your own name, which is not legal both ethically and professionally. The issues of plagiarism have been mostly seen in the educational sector because of many reasons.


Reasons Of Plagiarism Among Students
The first thing that promotes the plagiarism among the students is the teacher themselves, who do not make them aware about the issues and the types and even the results of plagiarism. Teachers are responsible for telling the students about the presentation of their own work and the work of the others. There are many teachers, which also find it very tough to go through each word of students' research paper or assignment and then giving them the grade accordingly, rather they just check out the views of the students and that is all. On the behalf of students, the plagiarism is enhanced because of the laziness, and the carelessness of the students. Once they find the cooked food they just want to eat it up and if once they get the success in cheating the teachers, they start developing the habit of plagiarism. They start lacking interest n their genuine work and even they promote these ideas among their friends. Obviously, teacher cannot trace each word of each student from the Internet; therefore, checking the plagiarism becomes very difficult.
Controlling Plagiarism In Students
There are many educational institutions, which are promoting the concept of punishment against the students who are accused of plagiarism, but the ways of plagiarism are so diverse that to control it becomes very difficult. Obviously you cannot control anyone to copy your ideas instead of the duplication checking software because such soft-wares are only limited to the text duplication and not the concept duplication. Therefore, the threat of plagiarism is not only in the text copying but also in the idea copying as well. Most of the students just make the different wording and get far better marks than the other who even came up with their own genuine work. Consequently, such students also develop such habits and the rate of plagiarism increases. There are many students who just want to avoid the chances of failure because they can get the bad grades based on their sole ideas. Furthermore another fault is from the side of the instructor who sometimes show the inefficiency of giving the feedback to the students on his good work and jut ignores that even the students have not made the whole month contribution. After that the student gets disappointed and he starts the working with plagiarism. Therefore, you can restrict the plagiarism to student only but there are many factors that make the students to come with the plagiaristic work, as it creates such feeling in them, like they are going to get the good grades through plagiarism.

Plagiarism Prevention Guidelines
Need of Plagiarism Prevention Guidelines
Understanding to the plagiarism is required to reduce the chances of plagiarism and that’s why there are different ways to clarify the definitions of plagiarism and the context and the limitations to use some one other’s work. The whole concept is the understanding the difference between the plagiarized and the legitimate paraphrase. Therefore, it is more preferable for you to have an understanding for you than to suffer the issues of copyright in the future and for this the Plagiarism Prevention Guidelines are very important. In fact there are various types of plagiarism and to avoid the plagiarism requires the awareness to all of them.


Disadvantages of Plagiarism
To go through some straightforward plagiarism prevention guidelines view the wrong about plagiarism. In fact the plagiarism is a criminal act, it’s just like stealing other property, and it hurts you wherever you use it. The chances of sufferings are very low if the instructor in the case of the student has no interest in the source of the material. Therefore, students try to minimize the burden of their work or they have no trust over their capabilities and in order to inspire their instructor they want to come up with the creative work they get the plagiarism work. And this can cause the issues to the student if instructor gets the information about the plagiarism and it also hurts the other students who come up with their own creative ideas. Therefore, students have to understand the wrongs of plagiarism and also the instructor has to consider the sources of material. In other cases of plagiarism at the professional level the legal cases can be claimed because of the copyright laws.
Consequences Of Plagiarism
The first and the foremost thing to prevent plagiarism after understanding the different types of plagiarism is the awareness to the consequences to plagiarism. For this the first thing is to clear the policies and the penalties against plagiarism. At the educational level the consequences of plagiarism should be displayed on the notice board so that students can beware of them and in the end cannot give any excuses.
Motivating The Creative Ideas
For the motivation of the genuine work the thoughtful and the innovative ideas from the students should be encouraged so that there will be no discouragement from the hard work. And even if they want to refer the other materials they should be made aware of the pattern of references. The benefits like the scholarships and the fee concessions can be offered to encourage them.
Awareness of the Instructor
In the case of the thesis or the research work the instructor can involve himself and can act as the helping instructor and can arrange meetings with the students to ensure the non- plagiarism work because in the end the estimation of plagiarism is tougher. The instructor can himself give them the reference material to further ensure the originally of the material. The bibliography is necessary to emphasize the original work, in the case of websites the complete link is required, and in the case of the printed text the appendix should be provided. The submission of softcopy must be there to evaluate the work through http://www.duplichecker.com/. Oral presentation should be encouraged to have the complete analysis of the students’ effort in the particular subject.
Hence, instructors or the publishers can play a great role in preventing plagiarism because the more the instructor gets interest; the more the students make effort and maintain the originality of the work.

Important Terms
Different Important Terms
Plagiarism is one of the major issues nowadays and it is increasing very rapidly in almost all fields of life like education, research, science, arts, and literature. But for understanding the Plagiarism the understanding of the terminologies is very necessary. In most of the cases people complain that they do not know the types of Plagiarism and therefore, they can not distinguish the difference between the Plagiarism and the research. Following is very important terminologies for understanding the concepts of Plagiarism.




Attribution
To make the reader acknowledged about the sources of the written material is the attribution.
Bibliography
Proper referencing is required for avoiding the Plagiarism and therefore, a list of sources is provided in the end of the written paper which is known as bibliography.
Cite
Along with the bibliography and the attributions, the citation in the form of short notes is required in order to mention the source of information and the quoted material. And there is a proper and the formal way to cite the sources and you can get a lot of information on it from different websites.
Citation
In short you can differentiate between the citation and the bibliography as citation is the short and most of the times the formal indication of the source of the referred material.
Copyright
A law that is applied to protect the knowledgeable work so that no one can illegally steal that is known as the copyright. And it is applied not on all of the writings but only on the very rare and the creative and innovative ideas.
Endnotes
Along with the details of the complete paper the end notes are given to give the appendices and the acknowledgments so that the reader can learn about the sources of the information and can analyze the authenticity of the material.
Facts
Facts are the knowledgeable works that are based on the strong evidences and also on the complete research and most of the times the factual data is copyrighted.
Footnotes
At the bottom of the pages the footnotes are given to indicate the sources of the quotations used in the above text.
Intellectual Property
Any creative idea or image is the intellectual property of the presenter.
Original
The genuine work and the first creative idea.
Paraphrase
The restatement of the text but proposing the same idea is a kind of plagiarism.
Plagiarism
The act of copying the thoughts, writings and the ideas of the others and showing them as your own is known as plagiarism.
Poor Disguise
It is the types of plagiarism in which only the outlook of the writing is changed so that the reader can not evaluate the Plagiarism in it.
Potluck Paper
The act of plagiarism in which different sources have been used to come up with the one thing is known as the Potluck Paper.
Private Owned
Any idea or the thought presented in a write up or in the image form that is well protected through the copyright laws is known as the private owned and it will be a criminal act to copy the text without authorization.
Public Domain
Any idea or the thought presented in a write up or in the image form that is not well protected through the copyright is the public domain.
Quotation
The process of referring someone’s other work is the quotation and there is a proper pattern to describe the quotation.
Self-plagiarism
The use of your own written material or idea in some other write up without mentioning the source of it is known as the self-plagiarism.

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