Presently, Plagiarism is one of the hottest issues. The current era in which we all are moving is an era of innovations. In technology, miracles are happening. Both the basic & social sciences are forming, and developing new laws, policies, and strategies for the welfare of humankind. As a result, the whole world is gathered on one platform, and it is called the Global Village.
Now, just through a single click, one can move to the desiring point through internet. In 1990s, the research culture was not as common as nowadays in developing countries. The universities and the other higher degree awarding institutions are playing the role of research centers. The universities are ranked as up and low based on their research work, which includes thesis, research papers publications, and research projects. The scholarly work is the foremost demand of research institutions, so the whole education community, both researchers, and students, are facing a competition situation. To compete with this challenge, some are striving, and producing innovative ideas through brainstorming, while some are busy stealing those original ideas, and publishing them as their own work. Someone copying and submitting the material as it is, in fact is plagiarism.
In recent times, plagiarism is growing swiftly in approximately all fields of life like teaching, research, and business. However, where there it is accruing, it is dishonesty in its nature. Plagiarism means that a person steals the original idea of any author, and publishes them as his/her own. The reasons of plagiarism may be as following:
- People are good savers, so they try to save their time and money.
- Some researchers/students do not have the ability to write, or think, so they steal the ideas of others and mention them as they are.
- Grading System is one of the major reasons of Plagiarism; the students strive to get good grades by doing plagiarism.
Plagiarism has wrapped the whole community, especially the educational community. The educationists directly suffer from this nuisance. For example, any student/researcher writes a research paper, he/she efforts hard for making an abstract, collection of data, statistical analysis, and then reaches the findings. However, on the other side, a lazy student or researcher just goes online or goes to the library, copies that original work and shows it as his/her own. It is a stealing, it is a theft, and the criminal must be punished for it. Plagiarism is devastating for genuine scholarly work in this way.
The core cause of plagiarism is the direct access to internet and online libraries. These are performing a vital role in enhancing the rate of this offense. At institutions, the students/researchers instead of doing their assignments by themselves prefer to save their time, and go for the copied work. In fact, they usually do not have confidence in their abilities and in wish of becoming prominent, or improving their grades, they research, and prefer shortest ways. The dark aspect of this worst activity is not only that the ideas of someone are being stolen, but also the threat that we are being deprived of young fresh innovative ideas, and thoughts.
On a secondary level, instructors can act as role models for researchers/students. The instructors themselves should be engaged in scholarly activities to motivate students. Moreover, the original work from students must be encouraged, and similarly, the copied work must be condemned. The students should be aware of the duplicate checker system so they will avoid cheating, or copying. The laws of copyright direly needed to be displayed at classrooms and notice boards also. The above discussions show that plagiarism is a crime as well as a curse. It has serious downsides. The copyrights laws should be strictly implemented, and there must be a penalty for those who violate them. The first step to avoid plagiarism in School, is awareness that everyone must know what plagiarism is, and its consequences.