Plagiarism
Because science and technology have been developing very well, people can search and obtain a lot of information easily on the Internet. Therefore, plagiarism has become a big and even worldwide issue. As an international graduate student, what I should do is to understand plagiarism and try my best to avoid it.
According to Owens and White [1], plagiarism is “the use of another author’s words or ideas without appropriate acknowledgement, which means that plagiarism could result from a failure to understand how to acknowledge a source, carelessness in doing so, or a deliberate attempt to present another person’s work as your own”. That means plagiarism is a kind of cheating, such as copying paper and quoting articles without citations. In Western culture, Academic integrity is another important concept which is related to plagiarism. The definition of academic integrity is the honor code or moral policy of academia. This includes values such as avoidance of cheating or plagiarism; maintenance of academic standards; honesty and rigor in research and academic publishing [2]. In my opinion, plagiarism is an immoral behavior and has bad effects on future study and even career.
In America, people valve honesty and integrity as a fundamental personal quality. This is a main reason why academic integrity is considered to be important in American education. Americans respect others including their intelligence and people’s research, paper and new ideas are considered as their belongings or properties which should also be protected. Therefore, you will be punished seriously as long as you plagiarize.
Because of different cultures, people do not have the same viewpoint of plagiarism. In China, students always think that any question has a standard answer, which means if they have the same answer or idea as others, they don’t think it is a big deal. As a result, some Chinese students feel it is OK to copy others homework and even paper. On the contrary, American people are educated to think independently and be creative so that they usually have their own perspective. Another reason is that penalty of plagiarism is weak and slight in China. However, the situation is getting better because Chinese government take plagiarism more serious than before.
There are a few ways that plagiarism could occur. Forgas and Negre [3] mentioned that three main factors may lead to the behavior of academic plagiarism for students: 1). Students’ poor time management. 2). Professors’ unreasonable quantity of homework. 3). Resources are available easily online. As far as I am concerned, the three factors indeed cause plagiarism. There is another reason which will lead to plagiarism. For international students, they may be not familiar with the rule of citation and feel confused about it. As a consequence, they could make a mistake when they try to cite other’s paper, which will result in plagiarism.
Since there’re many factors that could cause plagiarism as mentioned above, it is necessary for students to take advantage of strategies to avoid plagiarism. There are two aspects: for students and for educators. One method to avoid it is that schools and educators should highlight the consequences of plagiarism and the seriousness of punishment. Moreover, it is necessary to teach students how to use citation correctly. For students, they need to avoid using others idea or words without citation and know how to paraphrase correctly. Certainly, they can use direct quotation to support their opinions.
As a conclusion, in America plagiarism is a big issue which we need to avoid and keep academic integrity. As a international graduate student, what I should do is to be aware of the importance of plagiarism and learn the rules about citation. As a result, I can avoid plagiarism in academic field.
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Reference List
[1] Owens, C., & White, F. A. A 5-year systematic strategy to reduce plagiarism among first-year psychology university students, Australian Journal Of Psychology, 2013, pp.14-21.
[2] Alison Kirk, Learning and the marketplace, Southern Illinois University Press, 1996, pp.77-78.
[3] Comas-Forgas, R., & Sureda-Negre, J. Academic plagiarism: Explanatory factors from students’ perspective. Journal of Academic Ethics, 2010, pp.217-232.