http://thestar.com.my/special/online/plagiarism/mike_cutpaste.html
Cheating, the copy-and-paste way
LET’S face it, people do cheat, and sometimes by blatantly plagiarising someone else’s work.
And it seems like it has been going on forever. From paraphrasing a school report, to copying, in verbatim, a catchy phrase simply to increase their chances of winning a slogan contest, it seems that when it comes to cutting creative corners, people can be quite ingenuous.
But while cheating in itself is nothing new, the method by which it is done has changed with the times.
The Internet, regarded as the most invaluable source of information, is also now the most invaluable source of information for cheaters.
Jonathan Wong and Selva Gopal (not their real names), both 29, know how easy it is to plagiarise simply by pointing and clicking.
They know because they’ve done it before.
"The Internet has made it easier for me as a student," says Jonathan, an engineering graduate currently doing his MBA in marketing, in a recent telephone interview.
"If I have an assignment, all I need to do is get on the Web and do a simple search. Then when I find what I want, I simply print it out. From there half the work is already done."
But Jonathan maintains that he does not simply insert his name and pass the whole article/ essay off as his own. He says: "When I come across an article that is suitable, I’ll read through it and cut-and-paste the information that I require.
"If the information is a common idea, I’ll sometimes leave it as it is, word-for-word. If it is technical, I’ll paraphrase.
"More often than not, the end product is a combination of a few different articles," he says.
Jonathan says that he usually refers to the EBSCO Industries website for the articles and essays. (Note: EBSCO is NOT a digital papermill).
Easy temptations
Similarly, Selva – now working as an environmental consultant – recalls how as a chemical engineering undergra-duate in a public university, he copied articles directly from the Internet and used them as part of his assignments, and even his final year thesis.
He readily admits: "Back when I was a student, I used the Internet regularly as a source of information. It was so much more easier to search for information online compared to going through books in the university library.
"But then, the temptation to simply cut-and-paste a whole article was there, and you could say that without putting up much of a fight, I gave in.
"All I needed was a search engine, like Yahoo!. Once I found a suitable article, I’d simply make a few changes and I’m done."
Doesn’t he feel any remorse or shame?
"Well, I know that plagiarism – using someone else’s work and claiming it to be yours – is morally wrong, and I believe that if I was even slightly interested in the field of study then, I would have done things right.
"But then, I wasn’t (interested).
"Imagine a situation where those who did not resort to copying ended up with lower scores, then you’ll understand why I did what I did."
Selva feels that it didn’t really matter, because his lecturers certainly didn’t pay much attention to whether students copied or not.
In fact, he claims that his lecturers knew that most students took articles directly off the Net but turned a blind eye to this, and says that the lecturers were only interested in getting the assignment papers before the deadline.
"Even if the lecturers were to make an effort to determine who copied or didn’t, I don’t think they would have gone far.
"There were just too many students; it would have been too time consuming then," says Selva.
Today, there are a number of online companies that offer the technology to detect plagiarised work. Plagiarism.org is one of them.
Jonathan, on the other hand, says that if one were to copy "without being too obvious," then it is acceptable. He says, "To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong. I believe that about 90% of students copy in some way or another.
"And the word ‘plagiarism’ itself is not clearly defined. So one can’t say, for sure, that what I’m doing qualifies as plagiarism.
"Furthermore, I never copy a whole article word-for-word. If it is a 3,000-word assignment, I would only copy in verbatim, say about 500 words. And I do put in a few references," says Jonathan.
"Well, I’d say that if you’re going to cheat, then at least do it properly and don’t get caught!"
Neither Jonathan nor Selva have been caught cheating before, they say.
Prevalent problem
Jonathan and Selva are not the only ones who have plagiarised before. As part of this writing assignment, The Star Online conducted a survey on a small sample of 95 respondents from a local college in Petaling Jaya to determine how severe the problem was among students there.
In the survey, 39% of the respondents said they were of the view that copying is acceptable as long as the whole work is not copied in its entirety.
Another 28% believe that lifting a sentence or two from various sources is acceptable.
Only 16 people (17%) said that plagiarism was "totally unacceptable."
When asked whether they had plagiarised before, as much as 67% of the respondents admitted to plagiarising more than once; 12% said that they had only done it once, while 21% said they had never plagiarised before.
Most of the respondents who plagiarised were never caught (87%), but eight people out of the 95 respondents admitted to getting caught for plagiarising.
Respondents were also asked to rate the severity of plagiarism as a culture among Malaysian students, on a scale of one to five (one being the least and five being the greatest).
More than half of the respondents (53%) believe that plagiarism is severe among Malaysian students; 34% took the middle ground, while the remaining 13% felt that it wasn’t a worrying trend.
About 57% of the students said they believe that the Internet encourages plagiarism the most. The rest ventured that reading material/ research papers and peers are almost equally influential in encouraging plagiarism.
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