Plagiarism in universities or academia is a perpetual issue to tackle in the “Age of the Internet”. Teachers and writers have to continuously look for ways to avoid plagiarism and protect their data from getting into wrong hands. This is an eternal challenge for both ends.
How Plagiarism is getting committed in the University
With the thousands of ideas floating around and crossing over each other, the writer may often commit plagiarism accidentally.
Plagiarism is perpetrated whenever the writer doesn’t include the correct sources or cite the previous work correctly. It can be totally unintentional one or even accidental. There are at least 6 different ways to commit plagiarism knowingly or unknowingly. One of the common mistakes is to take someone’s help to write your research paper (or proofread it for you).
Stats of Plagiarism in Universities
How much plagiarism is committed in the universities? Nobody exactly knows. But no surprise to see the stats presented by the George Washington University. 7 of 42 students plagiarized most or all of their papers
The study is old though. At the time when the internet was started to flourishing across the globe, the psychological record study showed us around 36% of students are plagiarizing. Surprisingly, none of the students got caught and most of them said cheating as “no big deal”.
Have a look at this real-time plagiarism stat presented by one of the prestigious plagiarism prevention company.
The consequence of Plagiarism in Schools and Institutions.
Plagiarism is a never-ending battle. Every time Institutes comes up with a plagiarism prevention strategy, there are more ways students find to bypass plagiarism checkers and cheat intentionally.
The consequence of plagiarism and cheating varies from university to university. And also, from country to country. You may get debearded for university plagiarism from your current term, get expelled from your school or college, or even a criminal charge many get charged on you if it goes really serious.
Here are at least of which can happen after you get caught in plagiarism.
- Expulsion from your institution or school after you were found guilty of intentional plagiarism.
- Plagiarism may destroy your work reputation and you may lose your job.
- Legal actions like fine, penalties and criminal charges in case of copyright breach.
- You may be debarred from writing the exam.
It depends on the invigilator and the top authority to act and decide in such case. No matter the plagiarist did it intentionally or unintentionally, the rules often remain same.
How Universities try to avoid Plagiarism
In the back 1990, there was no way to detect plagiarism in universities in the way as of today. With the technological enhancements, many good companies are partnering with institutions and offering plagiarism checking solutions. Some institutes like IEEE offer its’ own database to check plagiarism and prohibited author list.
Companies like Plagiarism Checker X and Turnitin are directly working with universities to help them check plagiarism. Plagiarism checkers for research papers are becoming crucial with time for all kinds of authors from independent publishers to the university researchers.
These tools check for the similarity in the uploaded work and anything present on the Internet. As said, if you are not intentionally plagiarising from Turnitin database or giving your paper to anyone else, you should not worry. Also, You should use safe plagiarism checking software like PlagiarismCheckerX or Grammarly to check your paper against the open library aka the Internet.
Free Plagiarism Software Used by Universities – Grammarly to Plagiarism Checker X
Global plagiarism stat
A study by The Center for Academic Integrity found that almost 80% of college students admit to cheating at least once.
A survey by the Psychological Record shows that 36% of undergraduates have admitted to plagiarizing written material.
A poll conducted by US News and World Reports found that 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have never been appropriately disciplined.
A study conducted by Ronald M. Aaron and Robert T. Georgia: Administrator Perceptions of Student Academic Dishonesty in Collegiate Institutions found that 257 chief student affairs officers across the country believe that colleges and universities have not addressed the cheating problem adequately.
According to the Gallup Organization (October 6-9, 2000), the top two problems facing the United States are: 1) Education and 2) Decline in Ethics (both were ranked over crime, poverty, drugs, taxes, guns, environment, and racism, to name a few).
A national survey published in Education Week found that 54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet. 74% of students admitted that at least once during the past school year they had engaged in “serious” cheating. 47% of students believe their teachers sometimes choose to ignore students who are cheating.
source: rbs2.com