Academic Dishonesty: Forms and Impact of Plagiarism

Introduction

Academic dishonesty has probably existed since the first educational systems in human history. Generally, the motivation for plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty relates to achieving higher grades than those that genuinely correspond to the student's learning, ability, or performance level, or to laziness and the desire to acquire formal academic degrees as credentials for employment and/or social status.

Literary plagiarism is probably more prevalent than other forms of cheating, such as stealing exams or soliciting answers from other students during examinations, primarily for many of the same reasons that remote copyright theft of music is far more prevalent than the actual theft of tangible music recordings from retail outlets. Unlike other forms of academic dishonesty, plagiarism cannot be detected directly in the way that exam theft and student-to-student communication can be detected at the moment they occur.

Plagiarism occurs in private, just like illegal Internet downloads or unauthorized sharing of single-use software licenses. For this reason alone, plagiarism is perceived as less risky from the outset. Plagiarism exists in several distinct forms, including the overt misappropriation of substantive authoritative text, the misrepresentation of prior research, the recycling of papers written and already submitted for academic credit by other students, and the use of professional ghostwriters. Many instances of plagiarism are deliberate, but in other forms it can also be perpetrated unintentionally.

Overt Direct Substantive Misappropriation

The most obvious form of literary academic plagiarism consists of reproducing text from authoritative academic sources — such as textbooks and journal articles — verbatim, and then presenting that work, unchanged, as the submitting student's own. The growth of the Internet has greatly increased the efficiency and speed of deliberate plagiarism by allowing students to search through thousands of published sources online without ever visiting a library. The greatly expanded range of sources available to contemporary students also significantly reduces the relative risk that a teacher or professor will recognize plagiarized material upon reading it (Innerst, 1998; MJS, 2004).

To address the growing problem of academic plagiarism via online databases, an industry has emerged dedicated to detecting overt substantive plagiarism of this type. Generally, anti-plagiarism software allows instructors to submit text suspected of plagiarism to an online resource designed to identify similarities with vast databases of published material. Internet services like Turnitin.com provide membership-based access to academic institutions and instructors, and retain all material submitted for scanning in order to detect any attempts by other students to reuse those works subsequently.

Overt Indirect Substantive Misappropriation

Whereas overt direct substantive misappropriation involves presenting unoriginal authoritative work verbatim as one's own writing, overt indirect misappropriation involves original text but an unoriginal intellectual contribution to the material presented as academic work. Instead of reproducing prior authoritative text verbatim, students engaging in this type of plagiarism rewrite portions of prior authoritative work — sometimes entirely in their own words — but do not give appropriate credit to the original source (Boon, 2003; Girard, 2009).

Unlike overt substantive misappropriation, this form of plagiarism can occur unintentionally as well as deliberately. Many students may commit plagiarism unintentionally simply because they do not understand that appropriate academic standards require citation for any unoriginal idea outside the realm of common knowledge or widely known historical fact. At the time they paraphrase prior work, they may honestly believe they are doing nothing academically dishonest.

Conclusion

Academic dishonesty, much like myriad other forms of dishonesty in society, will likely never be eliminated entirely, for many of the same reasons that general dishonesty outside the academic realm will not be eliminated entirely. Cheating and dishonesty are likely fundamental elements of human nature, which is exactly why societies require laws, police forces, civil courts, and penal institutions.

Academic dishonesty is therefore also likely to persist indefinitely, including literary plagiarism in academia. As long as instructors continue to assign written work — especially work expected to be completed outside of class — laziness and the desire to increase grades by any means possible will continue to motivate academic plagiarism. Wide-scale academic dishonesty in general and plagiarism in particular devalues the worth of academic degrees and represents unfair competition with respect to students who submit only the product of their own work. Ultimately, it also undermines the value of any education or academic credentials received by the students who perpetrate it.

Bibliography

Boon, M. (2003). "Student cheating rises at Stanford: educational outreach, overhaul of disciplinary system may be contributing factors." Retrieved January 29, 2009, from the Palo Alto Weekly Online website, at: www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2003/20030411.cheating11.html

Girard, N. (2009). "Plagiarism: an ethical problem in the writing world." AORN Journal. Retrieved from FindArticles.com, at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FSL/is_180/ai_n6113175

Innerst, C. (1998). "Universities retreat in war on cheating." Washington Times, January 29, 2004. Retrieved January 29, 2009, from the National Center for Policy Analysis website, at: www.ncpa.org/pi/edu/jan98o.html

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (2004). Internet gives rise to a bold new era in college-student cheating. Jan 19; 1(A).

Slobogin, K. (2002). "Survey: many students say cheating 'OK.'" Retrieved January 29, 2009, from the CNN.com website, at: www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/04/05/highschool.cheating/