Sunday 12 June 2011

Plagiarism Boom!!!



Plagiarism is a major offence towards academic and publication ethics, yet it has been an existing problem for a number of years. It has caused damages to people and other people’s work and yet it continues to exist. Analysing the article from BBC magazine will help us have a better perspective to plagiarism and its existence.

Plagiarism: the Ctrl+C, Ctrl + V boom,” talks about plagiarism and its existence over the years. Technology advancement, especially the internet, has provided people the opportunity to a bigger digital library, hence increasing the rate of plagiarism. This article also points out that there are reasons for the existence of plagiarism and it differs between plagiarism found in academic and publication works. Plagiarism tends to be more prominent among first year undergraduates due to lack of appropriate instructions and also due to their adapting stage towards a new environment. In relation to publication works, plagiarism could exist due to editors dropping their guard to prevent this and also the difficulty to detect plagiarism.



The fourth rule of the principles of ethical publishing in the international journal of cardiology, as stated in Coats (2008), requires any work that is submitted should contained acquired material via ethical standards and not copied from others without permission. Plagiarism violates this rule and it can cause major damages to the reputation of the writer and it should be avoided by all cost. These damages could extend to the point of violating other authors’ copyright which will allow these authors to see that appropriate consequences should come to the copier. Game and West (2002) provides a solution to plagiarism, encouraging that detailed note-taking and record keeping of ideas used and accurately attributed to the right sources. They also encourage that quotation marks should be used and the source is appropriately cited. Appropriate and just punishment should be given to those who cannot practice these simple rules. In terms of academic writings, students should be consistently encouraged not to plagiarise and to understand the consequences of the plagiarism. Changes should not be made to any rule associated with plagiarism as it would defeat any effort made to emphasise the dangers of plagiarism.



In conlusion, plagiarism is a major offense and dangerous whether for academic or publication works. Every effort and more should be made to ensure this emphasis is made and understood.

References
Coats, AJS 2009, ‘Ethical Authorship and Publishing,’ International Journal of Cardiology, vol. 131, pp. 149-150, viewed on 10 June 2011,

Game, A & West, MA 2002, ‘Principles of Publishing,’ Psychologist, vol.15, no.3, pp. 126-129, viewed on 10 June 2011,

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