Plagiarism: The Shame to Academic World

"Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poorness of the borrower"

Lady Marguerite Blessington, Countess of Blessington
This quote by the Lady Marguerite Blessington amply describes the term plagiarism which is making the academic, literary and research world like a moth. Think a student who is asked to write dissertation/essays of his own choice chooses one which has already been accepted as a qualified dissertation is performing plagiarism with intention to deceive the academic community. This makes it clear that plagiarism is nothing but stealing. As per the 1995 Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary, plagiarism has been defined as "use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work". Such unethical and unrealistic deed is certainly a bad news for the whole of the literary work. In this section, we will hash out the implications of plagiarism on the academic world, and ways to avoid it. Further, we will determine the regulations that the government has imposed to curb this practice.

Plagiarism is a shame and disgrace to the academic world: Against the integrity and Ethics

Academic world, like any other creative field is based on the originality of ideas. When students are taught to write dissertation/essays or any other academic writing, they are expected to conduct research and write their dissertation/essays on their own. The academic results can be best gauged from the glow of the ideas and concepts. Once this factor is vanished, we can assume that the academic world is in grave danger. If the dissertation/essays created are copied from an original source, it is nothing but a shame and disgrace to the whole academic world. In fact, the main thought behind students are taught to write dissertation/essays on their own is that the academic institution is getting at the overall development and betterment of the students as well as the literary world. All efforts should be put in to avoid this practice and re-affirm the belief that something original dissertation/essays can be and should be produced, to bring in more grace to the academic world.

How and up to which extent the student academic performance is affected

The student, who goes to the academic institution to learn and raise the literary skills and knowledge of the actual world scenario, is provided with various dissertation/thesis, essays and research papers to find the knowledge of the domain. Such activities are planned to find the compatibility of the subject, and to discover the areas where the constructs are weak, and to allow them to learn more. Learning is thus the main target of such activities. However, if the student copies and bargains the dissertation/essays topic and content from other source, the very basic of the purpose remains unsolved. Such students whose sole intention is to copy the previously done dissertation/essays can no longer be honest in their approach to life. Academic world can be a set better without such candidates.

Ways to avoid plagiarism

There are several ways to avoid plagiarism, but the effect of the issue lies in self belief and self-motivation. If one decides that he will not copy the words and ideas in other persons' dissertation/essays, and will rather try to make something original, plagiarism will automatically vanish. However, many a times, one needs to express the idea or a concept in a better way by quoting a phrase or a sentence from some one who has done that before. In such scenario, one can always cite the source, and quote the idea or the phrase with due crediting. An example of such citation is in the beginning of this paragraph. I have quoted Stephen Gosson, who had previously expressed his aspects on plagiarism, and such quotation actually hit the bull's eye. Besides this, there are several software and websites which can correctly find whether the words or ideas in the dissertation/essays have been stolen or not.

Regulation in US and UK to curb Plagiarism

Plagiarism is just like kidnapping and stealing, and such illegal act certainly calls for an official and legal procedure to curb this practice. In US and UK, there are strong legal acts condemning the practice of plagiarism, and the offenders behind face severe actions such as black listing of the particular person, and investing a ban on all existing and future works by that person. The university councils are offered with the required guidelines to terminate the offender from the institution, and fortify all the existing and future works of that person.

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Posted in: Academic world,Research papers