Creativity can be an essential advantage to a person. Creativity leads to new creations, findings, sources and innovation. However, in the Internet era, creativity has become a tool of fabrication. Various information that are helpful for academic purposes have become a source of fabrication of others’ work. The issue of plagiarism, which will be discussin this essay,is to focus on how it being used not for selfish and personal purposes, but also to highlight that plagiarism has become a misused tool in order to get one’s job done (see more on Plagiarism in the 21st Century). This involvement in the manipulative world of e-plagiarism sinfully quenches an innocent thirst for knowledge. Although one will successfully complete his or her academic tasks by plagiarizing others’ work using the Internet, one will experience dissatisfaction and fear in doing so,since e-plagiarism can be curbed by a number of strategic tactics designed by educators. It is important for students and educators alike to be aware of the negative effects of e-plagiarism, in order to maintain academic integrity. The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles are important virtues that scholars need to inculcate.
Hannabuss (2001) defines plagiarism by stating that "plagiarism is the unauthorised use of close imitation of the ideas and language or expression of someone else."
According to the author,he thinks that plagiarism is more of "using the words or phrases of another person and restating another's thoughts in slightly different words."
To be precise, Hannabuss shows an example from this article and clarify that
it is plagiarism should take credit for Shakespeare's "To be, or not to be: That is the question." This can be said that it is an act of plagiarism that he modify his sentences with giving credit to Shakespeare's words.
Chidley (1997) from his article included student's and educators say regarding
plagiarism. According to him, Boudreau, a fourth year psychology major, says
that cheating at UCCB is not widespread, but is most common among freshmen and
second-year students. He added that,
"First years, they're kind of young, they're still goofing around," "Some of the bad habits they picked up in high school might be continuing." From this evidence, this can clarify that the phenomenon of e-plagiarism has
become a sense of basic needs for some of the students.
Ralston (2001) included an educators' honest opinion in his article. He said,
Elizabeth Kiss, a director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke
University, also has studied plagiarism among students, including ways to help
prevent it. One of the preventative measures that teachers can take, she said,
is to talk to students in class about academic honesty and what is expected of
them. Based on the various writers' opinions above, it is clear that
plagiarism is an act of copying directly from others' work and being purposely
ignorant in matters of citation. E-plagiarism carries the same definition. The
only difference between the latter and the former definition will be that e-
plagiarism is an act of copying directly others' work that has been published
online. The popularity of e-plagiarism has made it clear that it is a need for
the information society of today to draw up constructive and creative
solutions to solve this problem, thus, encouraging the student community as
well as the public to instil and learn the skills of writing effectively.
Reference List
Caruana A.,Ramaseshan B.,and T. Ewing M.,(2000)"The effect of anomie on academic dishonesty among university students," Library Trends,vol.14,No.4,pp.23.
D. Born A.(2003)"How to reduce plagiarism," Journal of Information Systems Education,vol.14,no.3,pp.223.
Tracey E Sutherland.,(2004)“Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism. The Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Statement on Best Practices,�Accounting Education News vol.32,no.1,pp.5-9.
E-Plagiarism : E-Plagiarism
Harith 13:03, 12 Oct 2004 (EST)
