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Plagiarism

Decent Essays

Plagiarism: Why it Continues to Occur?

Darian Camacho
English 111, Section 11
Professor Coulter
March 21, 2013

Plagiarism: Why it Continues to Occur? The increase in plagiarism has gained the attention of many institutions, administrators and educators, as well as researchers and the public. This increase has brought to attention the concern of why plagiarism continues to occur. In order to debate this concern we should first understand the definition and background of plagiarism, the factors which influence plagiarism, and what is or is not being done to prevent it. I will be looking into three articles in which my discussion will be based on. These articles include “Combating Plagiarism” by Brian Hansen, “Internet Plagiarism …show more content…

781). Some institutions do not even bother to use these plagiarism-detection services due to legal affairs. Mike Smith, who is the assistant chancellor for legal affairs of Berkeley, stated, “There probably were ways we could have done it legally, but given all the questions, the administrators here just felt that it really didn’t want to go in that direction” (as cited in Hansen, 2003, p. 781).
Hansen raises another question, “Are news organizations doing enough to guard against plagiarism and other types of journalistic fraud?” (2003, p. 781). Hansen interviewed editors, columnists, and instructors to discuss this question. The discussion going on was about a scandal involving Jayson Blair who was caught plagiarizing the articles he had written for “The New York Times.” Hansen states that “many experts were shocked when The Times conceded this spring that Blair’s editors never asked him to identify his anonymous sources” (2003, p. 781). After the scandal was made public, other news organizations began to review their policies. The increase of plagiarism is of a concern to all. Looking back at what was discussed, you can see that there are many factors that contribute to the continuing occurrence of plagiarism. First, students may be unaware of what actually counts as plagiarism. Thus, educators should be more open to their students in explaining what plagiarism is and how to prevent it. Further, plagiarism was not always considered unethical.

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