Plagiarism

The art of cheating or copying other people’s work without giving them due credit is very old, and it has started to create a problem. Recently a University had to refuse admission to several students because their admissions essay was copied with only one line verbatim. I have also encountered case of Plagiarism. When I use to be a professor of managerial economics, I gave students to do one term paper and when it was handed over to me, not one line but whole pages were copied from news paper and not only that it was not an isolated event but I believe that several students copied the same newspaper article and submitted to me like it was nothing. They wanted to get the credit for the presentation of the paper (like laser typed, bounded etc), and I am talking to you about this incident when the internet was very young (mid 1990s).

Now with the internet being accessible, there are more reports that students are picking whole texts from sample essays from the internet. I guess that it is the nature of the competitive environment that we are in that they are under pressure to get into good schools and also of the economic environment and instant gratification that this is happening. But if the students are trying to get away with this, the educationists are not far behind in tracking and eliminating this thing. Software is available in the market which can track and scan the whole internet to find similar articles which were previously published. So word to the college bound aspirants, spend some time and create your own essays and if you are in college just try to stay away from the temptation to copy quotes, lines and articles and if you do give that article the due credit.