A Guide to Ethical Writing: Avoiding plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices

The Internet has revolutionized the way in which people think, do, communicate, and live. Throughout the past 20 years, the number of data accessible to students on the web has grown to staggering proportions. No longer are students spending numerous hours in the library studying, now, students can with the press of the mouse, can access all the data needed to write a paper. As technology grows to see student assignments for plagiarism, thus too will the ways that students use to plagiarize while not getting caught. The main problem is there is an excessive amount of info accessible on the web for university students and employees to use for plagiarism, however, advances in technology also make it easy to monitor and detect plagiarism. The school must implement policies and provide tools in which help to solve the problem.

Plagiarism is considered, claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) somebody else's written or artistic work, in whole or partially, into one's own while not adequate acknowledgement. It feels like a transparent cut definition, however within the realm of the web the task of dominating is discouraging. It may be as easy as paraphrasing text and not citing it properly, or blatantly repetition and pasting articles from websites to use as your own research work. Specific definitions vary from faculty to high school, even once it involves the number of consecutive words raised from the first document. Over the past few years, many faculties have altered their official ethics policies to address this downside. Advancements in technology have safeguarded students against potential charges of plagiarism; however, students cannot solely have confidence in these tools. Based on the research of Evering and Moorman (2012), the lack of engagement with or interest in material and pressure to gain high grades are also commented on (Evering, Moorman 36). Plagiarism is not solely prohibited, however, it is hurtful to students for a range of reasons. Initially, it violates federal copyright laws. Several students are blissfully unaware that information found on the net is, by default, proprietary the instant its place into a hard and fast format. What this implies, is that any info on a publicly-accessible website is simply as protected as an editorial found in an instructional journal, and will be treated intrinsically and cited befittingly. According to Selwyn, “the only technology-related area for change which may be pursued stems from the finding that students who were frequent users of the internet for what could loosely be termed informal procurement practices were also more likely to report episodes of online plagiarism” (Selwyn 467).

Plagiarism has become an ever increasing drawback since the introduction of the internet. Educators will sit back and do nothing or they will take a stand to combat the matter. Plagiarism is considered the deliberate or inadvertent use of passing of another’s author’s work as their own. There are several tools to forestall plagiarism together with permitting longer to complete an assignment, purchase plagiarism software package, taking elaborate notes, and citing the work of another author. The simplest factor for any student to try to is to cite any words or concepts that do not seem to be original. This may forestall a fair larger headache within the future. Teachers will use all the technology accessible to forestall and sight plagiarism. However, the sole true way in which to stop plagiarism is to encourage ethics. Student’s ethics and educational integrity should be schooled at an early age to instill these values, in that way to carry on through adulthood.

Works Cited

Evering, Lea Calvert, and Gary Moorman. "Rethinking Plagiarism in the Digital Age." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 56.1 (2012): 35-44. Literary Reference Center.

Excellent Translation and Research. Plagiarism in Essay Writing. Online. https://excellenttranslations.com/plagiarism.html

Plagiarism. “Plagiarism Today”./

Selwyn, Neil. "'Not Necessarily a Bad Thing ...’ a Study of Online Plagiarism amongst Undergraduate Students." Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 33.5: 465-479. Sociological Collection.