Plagiarism In College Essay

In a group of studies conducted through different school districts by the National Education Association, 80-95 percent of students admitted to cheating at least one time in the past year. Additionally, 75 percent of those students admitted to having cheated at least four or more times in the past year. It was once thought that the students who cheated did so in order to appear proficient in classroom material they did not understand, however, the statistic mentioned previously, does not support that. For example, in districts where 95 percent of students admitted to cheating at least once, motives may be formed by other external stimuli. Cheating, and its subset of plagiarism, has transformed from a tool used by struggling students into an

Wasieleski, an associate professor of management at Duquesne University said, “Students are surprisingly unclear about what constitutes plagiarism or cheating”. In a societal that put’s a heavy value on success, this quote makes quite a lot of sense. Many students aren’t going to be interested in the ethics of their means, so long as the consequences are not serious. Academic integrity has changed substantially over the past two decades. With the introduction of the Internet to the common household starting in the mid ‘90s, students have had access to a larger volume of scholarly works at their disposal. Unlike in previous years, these works offer the ability to be “copied” electronically and “pasted” directly into research papers and essays. Not all plagiarism today can be attributed to the “copy and paste” feature, but the feature can be blamed for blurring the line between true authorship and student ownership (Walker). Teachers have little ability to check for cheating such as plagiarism. Outside from the standard, online plagiarism checking software for papers and makings sure essays are individual and not copied from a classmate, how should forged work be detected. There is an ever growing number of sources students may draw from, that plagiarism checking software cannot possibly keep up with

In the world outside of a shielded school environment, complex legal battles dealing with intellectual property continually intersect courtrooms. Especially in the areas of music and media arts, copyright laws provide the means by which their owners live. As a means of sustenance, it makes sense that some people would viciously defend the right to their intellectual property: ideas, music, art, inventions, and writing. Schools only begin the scratch the surface of explaining to student why not to plagiarize. It is only known to students that they are expected not too do such things (Dorning). If the consequences of the real world were brought into the classroom, for example, if such legal battles were shared with students or if students could see the impact plagiarism can have some struggling writers, it may help the understanding of why plagiarism, and in the larger spectrum, cheating, should not