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Plagiarism Essay

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These days, with all of the information that is readily available on the internet, and many students opting to obtain education from online colleges and universities, the prevalence of plagiarism is on the rise. In a 2005 study conducted by the Center for Academic Integrity (www.academicintegrity.org), it was concluded that 40% of the 50,000 undergraduates asked admitted to having plagiarized from the internet. This is a very large jump over a span of six years, from only 10% in 1999 (Badke, 2007). It is becoming clear that educators, as well as students, need to become more familiar with what plagiarism is, what constitutes it, and how it can be avoided in order to ensure students are getting the most out of their online learning …show more content…

Yet far from being an abstract concept in the online course, copyright is an integral part of the online operation.” Nearly everything that is read, observed, watched, listened to or written by the student in an online class is protected by copyright. It is for this reason that students enrolled in online colleges and universities need to be educated in ways to avoid plagiarism, not only to protect themselves from the possibility of copyright infringement, but to guarantee they are facilitating the learning process and receiving the knowledge from the course that is intended (Alsaffar, 2006). But what can be done to stem the rising tide of plagiarism?
Teachers have been losing a technological war with their students over plagiarism for many years. Since the times when term papers and other assignments were written by hand, students have been willing to present work completed by other people as their own. Today with a greater array of tools available to students the plagiarism problem has exploded (Auer, 2001). From the simple cutting-and-pasting from un-cited sources to the use of searchable collections of term papers available for purchase, students have a huge selection of information and techniques that make it easier for them to commit plagiarism (Auer, 2001). However, teachers and educators are now starting to use the same

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