Assignment 3:

Report: Plagiarism and Its Role in Academia

Group Members:
Mahnoor Shaheen SP17-BBA-039
Anam Nadeem SP17-BBA-021
M. Asad Malik SP17-BBA-025
Sabeeh Butt SP17-BBA-026

Submitted to: Sir Mehmood Anwar

Date of Submission: Nov 29th, 2017.
Course Title: Report Writing

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 Table of Contents

Pg. No.

Introduction……………………………………………………………...3
Background……………………………………………………………...4
Statement/Purpose of Problem…………………………………………..6
Significance……………………………………………………………...6
Review of Related Literature……………………………………………6
Method of Study………………………………………………………...7
Questionnaire……………………………………………………………8
Scope of Study…………………………………………………………..9
Limitation………………………………………………………………..9
Work Cited/References……………………………………………….....9

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 Plagiarism and Its Role in Academia

Introduction:

Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's
"language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original
work. Plagiarism is considered as trying to show someone’s work or research as your own i.e.
intentional plagiarism but sometimes plagiarism can be unintentional as well which includes not
giving proper credit for someone else's ideas, research, or words even if you did not intend to
present them as your own. Plagiarism can be of many types but the most common are direct, self,
mosaic and accidental plagiarism. It is considered an academic dishonesty and a breach of
journalistic ethics. It is subject to sanctions like penalties, suspension, and even expulsion.
Plagiarism is not in itself a crime, but can constitute copyright infringement. In academia and
industry, it is a serious ethical offense. Plagiarism and copyright infringement overlap to a
considerable extent, but they are not equivalent concepts, and many types of plagiarism do not
constitute copyright infringement, which is defined by copyright law and may be adjudicated by
courts. Plagiarism is not defined or punished by law, but rather by institutions (including
professional associations, educational institutions, and commercial entities, such as publishing
companies).

This report is a detailed explanation of plagiarism and its devastating effects in academia. It
highlights the effects of plagiarism on the academic integrity.

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Background:
The maintenance of integrity involves high quality scholarly practices and professional behavior
that helps underpinning the behavior in the workplace and reflecting on the honesty and integrity
in all aspects of life which is the basic and most important in the academic learning environment.

Academia is the community of teachers, students, professors and scientists in the research world.
It is the root of the upcoming knowledge. Plagiarism and dishonesty in academia therefore poses
a serious threat to the quality of information being circulated and questions the acknowledgment
of the researchers. Our report therefore focuses on the side effects of plagiarism in academia.

Plagiarism is on the rise:

Plagiarism is one of the most highlighting issue of the modern research that questions the
integrity of scholarly practices. Over decades, plagiarism in academic writing has been viewed as
a serious issue of academic integrity within educational institutions.

Why plagiarism?
Problem of plagiarism is one of the biggest hot issue in the field of our education and is
becoming extensive for student around the world, especially the university student. Some of the
major causes of increasing plagiarism activities involve:

 Internet has provided an easy access to the scientific research papers and latest
information regarding every topic which has caused an open access for the academic
personnel to plagiarize.
 Poor time-management skills that compels students to plagiarize.
 Poor planning of time and effort required for research-based writing
 Instructors and institutions may fail to report cheating when it does occur, or may not
enforce appropriate penalties.
 Open access to scientific research papers and journals that enables researchers to
plagiarize in many different ways.
 Unawareness of effects of plagiarism at the end of students let them engage in plagiarism.
 No strict penalties of plagiarism.

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Plagiarism and Academia:
In academia, it is seen as the adoption or reproduction of original intellectual creations (such as
concepts, ideas, methods, pieces of information or expressions, etc.) of another author (person,
collective, organization, community or other type of author, including anonymous authors)
without due acknowledgment, in contexts where originality is acknowledged and rewarded.

In academia, plagiarism is not just restricted to the level of students, but involves professors and
scholars as well.

Some scholars contend that there are students who have a pathological urge to cheat. The writer
Thomas Mallon noted that many scholars had found plagiarism in literature. A common reason
for unethical behavior is the desire to "gain a competitive advantage in the race for position or
power”.

Causes of plagiarism in academia:

Demographic and personal causes:
Research has identified a number of demographic characteristics that appear to be important
influences on cheating, including age, gender and grade point average. Older students, females,
and students with higher academic achievement are less likely to cheat, whereas students
involved with many extra-curricular activities are more likely to do so.
Contextual causes:
Academic misconduct is more easily traced to the academic and social environment of
researchers than to their background.
Ethical causes:
No matter what the demographic or contextual influences are on a student who decides to engage
in cheating behavior, before they can cheat they must overcome their own conscience. This
depends both on how strongly someone disapproves of academic dishonesty and what types of
justifications the student uses to escape a sense of guilt.

The increasing plagiarism activities at various levels of academia require immediate control. The
modern technology and the ease of access to the research due to the internet access has increased
plagiarism in the modern research. The damaging effects need to be understood immediately that
requires awareness not only at the part of students but at the higher academic levels as well.

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Based on these events we have developed a recommendation report that explains plagiarism, its
cause and effects to the academic world and recommends ways to overcome the activities of
plagiarism. It is required by the individuals of academia to understand plagiarism as a serious
misconduct and to increase its awareness to safeguard academic integrity.

Statement of the Problem/Purpose:

The purpose of this report is to understand and analyze plagiarism and its effetc on academic
integrity.

Significance of study:
There are number of people that may be benifited from this study.Identifying negative effects
may enable them to take necessary actions to cope with the rising threat of plagiarism.By sharing
this knowledge , students can enable to manage to their work more properly. It will help in
understanding of plagiarism as an unethical behavior that is a serious offence in the academic
world.

Review of Related Literature

Parmley (2000) concluded that “A ‘publish-or-perish’ mentality must never degenerate into
‘plagiarism-and publish’ mentality.”

Syed Shahabuddin in Plagiarism in Academia (2009, Volume 21,) explains that Plagiarism
sometimes creates legal and ethical problems for students and faculty. It can have serious
consequences. Fortunately, there are ways to stop plagiarism. There are many tools available to
detect plagiarism, e.g. using software for detecting submitted articles. Also, there are many ways
to punish a plagiarist, e.g. banning plagiarists from submitting future articles for publication. In
addition, scholarly journals should clearly state their policies regarding plagiarism and require
authors to sign a statement indicating that their articles meet the requirements of original work.

TINA AMIRTHA in A map of scientific plagiarism around the world (2014) mined data from
the online repository arXiv, revealing where science plagiarism rears its head around the world.

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They used data from the online repository to understand the rate of plagiarism around the world.
Following figures explains level of plagiarism globally.

Fig1.

The global view of science plagiarism MAP: COURTESY OF SCIENCE INSIDER

Methods of the Study:

Data Source:
Secondary data was collected from research papers and articles for this study. Based on this data
we analyzed the current state of plagiarism in academia.
The study regarding the awareness of students about plagiarism was carried out using the
questionnaire. It includes 10 questions that is designed to get an understanding of how much the
students know about plagiarism.
The questionnaire is as follows:

Plagiarism Awareness Questionnaire:

Instructions:
Tick mark your choice.
Write short answers
1. What is your course title?

2. What year are you in?

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First Second
Third Fourth
Fifth Postgraduate
Other (please specify)

3. What is plagiarism?

4. When can you be accused of plagiarism?

Assignment Dissertation
Exam Project

5. Did you have a session on plagiarism when you started your time at your institute?
Yes No

6. If yes, did you find it useful?

Yes No

7. Do you usually ask for help if you are having difficulty writing an assignment?
Yes No Sometimes

8. Are you confident with referencing your work?

Yes No Sometimes

9. Do you use words or sentences from articles or books when writing essays without using quotation
marks?
Yes No Sometimes
10. Who would you ask for help about plagiarism or referencing?
Tutor Lecturer
English Language Centre Friend

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Advice Service None of the above
Other (please specify)

Scope of the Study:

This report explains plagiarism, the consequences of unethical conduct and its effects. Our
research involves the unethical behavior and the rise in the plagiarism in the academia and is
bound to students, professors and scholars.
This report focuses in people related to academic field and how this part is getting effected due
to plagiarism.

Limitation:
This study may be limited through the use of a questionnaire as a data collection instrument for
understanding student awareness of plagiarism. Because questionnaires must generally be brief,
areas that may have been affected by stress may not have been included in the questionnaire.

Works Cited:
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Nov 29, 2017), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism

Intentional & Unintentional Plagiarism (Nov 29, 2017),

http://holyfamily.libguides.com/c.php?g=610218&p=4236572

Causes of Plagiarism (Nov 29, 2017), https://www.kent.edu/writingcommons/causes-plagiarism

Consequences of Plagiarism (Nov 28, 2017), https://www.scanmyessay.com/plagiarism/consequences-

of-plagiarism.php

Causes of Plagiarism Essay http://www.123helpme.com/causes-of-plagiarism-preview.asp?id=201871

(Syed, 2009)Plagiarism in academia retrieved

fromhttps://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1c08/8220e33c325c38c583b73b96d449bf0f6d4c.pdf
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DKRMCGW

(Jonathan Bailey, November 11, 2011) Why Plagiarism is on the

Risehttps://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/11/11/why-plagiarism-is-on-the-rise/