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,

Public Apology by Berita Harian Over Tsunami Cartoon



Publishing of articles, especially in regards to global issues, demands writers to practice ethics. Readers of articles can be influenced by what they read and understand, therefore articles must display proof practiced ethics to avoid misunderstanding. For further understanding, analysis on a newspaper article will help us.

On March 14th 2011, an article was published online titled: “Berita Harian issues public apology over tsunami cartoon.” Japan faced a major earthquake on the 11th of March causing a massive tsunami to hit its shores. Berita Harian published a cartoon created by Mohd Zohri Sukimi, a.k.a Zoy, which showed the popular Japanese icon Ultraman running away from a huge oncoming wave. This publication caused a disturbance on social networking sites due to its insensitive and offensive characteristic, leading both politicians and the public to criticise it. Due to the criticisms, an apology needed to be made though it was not the daily’s intention to be insensitive.


Shriver (1997) indicates that the decisions document designers make about the relationships between prose and graphics can have a major impact on the clarity of the message and how engaging the message is. Reep (2006) also agrees stressing that graphic aids in isolating the main topics and appeal particularly to general and non-expert readers. In line with this, the cartoon was very clear on the message and, had it been published at another time, it would have been quite funny and well done. However, due to the time it was published, the cartoon was very insensitive and was not well thought off in terms of ethics.

It is clear that the editor was not thorough in his practice of ethics. Morton (2009) highlights two specific duties and responsibilities of editors and publishers: peer review and responsible publication practice. He goes on to say that peer review is necessary to declare conflicts of interest and provide objective, unbiased reviews while the editors need to ensure accuracy and encourage academic discourse and debate. With the publication of the cartoon, it is clear to see that these two duties were lacking and this caused them some damage to the name of their newspaper. Therefore, an apology was necessary and appropriate towards the Japanese citizens.

In conclusion, ethics is important to be practiced before any publication is made in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding as it can lead to other unwanted issues.

Reference:
Morton, NS 2009, ‘Publication Ethics,’ Pediatric Anesthesia, vol.19, no.10, pp. 1011-1013, viewed on 10 June 2011,

Schriver, KA 1997, Chp 6: The interplay of words and pictures, Dynamics in document design:creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Publishing, New York

Reep, Diana C. 2006, Chp 4: Principles of Document Design, Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York