Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone else’s thoughts, ideas, plans, research, terms, phrases, slogans, words, or works and calling it your own. By definition it is an act of theft and considered a crime. In the academic world, it is a serious offense whose punishment could range from failing the class to expulsion. (Moss, Stephen, 2005)
In the last decade, plagiarism has increased in occurrence; most may surmise that it has become so popular because of the advances in modern technology, specifically the internet. Information is readily available at the click of a button. Additionally, because of the ease of access, students may feel the information available online is free for the taking and may not consider it stealing. Or students may not be well versed in paraphrasing or citing another’s work, thus plagiarizing unintentionally.
Plagiarism.Org (2008) has several enlightening, and somewhat dreadful statistics, “A national survey published in Education Week found that 54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the internet; 74% of students admitted that at least once during the past school year they had engaged in "serious" cheating; and 47% of students believe their teachers sometimes choose to ignore students who are cheating.” And what may be more disturbing is that Plagiarism.Org (2008) also reports that “A study conducted by Donald L. McCabe titled Faculty Responses to Academic Dishonesty: The Influence of Honor Codes found that 55% of faculty "would not be willing to devote any real effort to documenting suspected incidents of student cheating".”
It is this author’s opinion that regardless of whether a student plagiarizes intentionally or unintentionally, it is their ethical responsibility to do their due diligence and learn to cite mater ...