lsPlagiarism is known as a form of literary dishonesty, otherwise known to college students as cheating.
It is looked down upon highly by academics and it carries with it many serious consequences. Over the past five years, the Internet has emerged as a cheater’s dream and a professor’s worst nightmare. It’s because of a variety of web sites that give students access to entire papers for a nominal fee and sometimes even for free. As a result of the widening accessibility of the Internet, as well as the new medium’s lack of regulation, a student can click a few computer buttons and in a matter of minutes, they can download a well-crafted term paper without having to pick up a single book. It seems as though the Internet has totally changed the meaning of the word ‘research.
’Plagiarism can formally be defined as: repeating the author’s sentences as your own; adopting a particularly apt phrase as your own; paraphrasing someone else’s argument as your own; presenting someone else’s link of thinking in the development of a thesis as though it were your own (Modern Language Association). Although a writer may use another’s words and thoughts, they must be acknowledged as such. The act of plagiarism in school is nothing new. In the days before the Internet, plagiarism occurred in colleges and universities across the country in the form of Cliffs Notes.
Cliffs Notes, formed in 1958 by a Lincoln, Nebraska Company presents summaries of many works of literature (The Associated Press). Professors found that students were often reading these summaries instead of reading the entire works. Students then plagiarized these summaries to prepare term papers. Some universities, such as Villanova, have even decided to ban Cliffs Notes from being used within the University. However, Cliffs Notes were not as easily accessible as the Internet is. Now all the work of research and even Cliffs Notes has been replaced with simple online search engines and cut-and-paste word-processing tools.
Previously, a large number of people were able to resist the temptation. Now the Internet is everywhere. Students can find themselves easily signing online at 2am to buy term papers. It’s much harder to resist the temptation because it is far more convenient than going to the book store. Ready-made term papers have become enticing to students seeking a lazy alternative to real school work.
Sadly, many students do not feel the same sense of guilt when they obtain papers from the Internet (Cina). We are raising a generation of students who think that anything on the Internet is free and they should not give a thought to documenting them (Renard). It seems as though the “free stuff” attitude of Internet users has made students think that stealing research is more acceptable. Internet plagiarism has simply evolved into an institution, a pillar of education, a big study group and an endless archive of cut-and-paste essay components (Fritz). We are now faced with three types of Internet cheaters. The first, the unintentional cheater never learned how to properly use and document resources.
These cheaters will usually admit their wrongdoing because they don’t understand the alternative. A second type of cheater is the sneaky cheater. These students know what plagiarism is and that it is wrong, but they also know how to get away with it, so they plagiarize portions from research sites and portions from other student papers online. The all-or-nothing cheaters are students who wait too long before starting term papers and panic at the last minutes. These students often find the whole paper on the Internet, add their names, print it, and turn it in for a grade. This is the laziest form of Internet cheating and it is the easiest to detect (Renard).
Term paper “mills” are nothing new, but their growth has exploded on the Internet. Perhaps this is due to the “Term Paper Blues” ads that are being run in the back of Rolling Stone magazine by “Research Assistance” (Wice). This new way to take credit for someone else’s work is particularly alarming because of the ease of which they can be obtained (Byrd). There is a rapid growth of sites operated by money-hungry entrepreneurs willing to make .
