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Essay, 12 pages (3000 words)

Expectations regarding source material in professional and academic submissions

In the advent of new technologies in today??? s world, access to data over the internet and other sources has made things easy for preparing for both professionals and students alike. This has added ways for individuals to obtain information on their data while having its own advantages and disadvantages. This also causes the emergence of new problems that can complicate or even destroys a student??? s almost-but-not-quite life. And in a society where the expression of thoughts is a way of defining one??? s self-being, it is quite difficult of a task to be able to define properly how some people, whether unconditionally or intentionally, be it in the professional world or the academe, to sometimes commit mistakes in choosing their resources.

It is also sometimes a funny thing to say that works of certain people can come from almost anywhere and require a person to acknowledge them even if the person is unaware that he used it. There are also instances wherein academic submissions are being jeopardized by the existence of problems aside from, say, plagiarism. These include the access to hoax sites, discrepancies in interviews which are done in a peer-to-peer way, confusion with the processes to gather data, falsification of information, etc. Academic institutions in particular look forward to resources wherein the capabilities of an individual can be well expressed. This is evident in the choice of the process in gathering information, ways in actually dissecting it, up to the point of applying it in their submissions. These incidents usually end up with an ineffective paper that may not really be significant in some required paper works.

Although one thing is for certain: the individuals involved are expected to gather the right amount of information. Questions to consider in writing submissions Although the our age is defined by the ease in keeping in touch with the information that we need, it still does not necessarily guarantee the effectiveness in choosing the right options that we need in gathering data and eventually producing an output. Individuals may be confused between the ways they want to do things with the ways of actually doing it. However, there are questions that one has to answer in picking out the most appropriate options that they need to write an effective submission. First, is the identification of the nature or purpose of the written output.

Who is it intended for? Who will read it? The ways to gather data will depend on this. Second, the writer must be keen enough to realize the appropriateness of his strategy in writing his output. Most written articles require interviews which in turn needs questionnaires, and observance of proper procedures (Mallet). The treatment of these factors results to an efficient way of making outputs. When it ends up with plagiarism The term plagiarism is an idea that is quite complicated to give such a definition since the actual act of committing it covers a variety of actions that ranges from simply having mistakes in indicating wrong or deficient citations of material sources up to the indiscriminate act of stealing of someone else’s thoughts or works.

This is particularly done in common educational requirements such as reaction papers, essays, research papers, and thesis manuscripts. Such a case can also happen in the professional world through things like publications, academic presentations among others. To plagiarize a certain work usually is considered as an intellectual dishonesty in the academic sense. Additionally, the act of plagiarism either of unintentional or on purpose means has a relative effect with the notion of the crime for both the faculty involved and the students who performed it.

The discovery of such dishonesty, especially to students, in claims of authorship of particular literature could often lead to failing grades, delay of graduation, or even expulsion from the institution without honorable dismissal. On the other hand, dire explanations of the term had also confused a lot of people. For a fact, it is said that copying someone else??? s work or thought is pretty much a bad thing. The point is there and there is no harm in saying that it is. Peter Levin (2003) directly classified the panic this has already created saying that it has already escalated to the exaggerated state of panic of academic institutions over the so-called rampant epidemic of plagiarism among students??? works. Levin even labeled it as a ??? witch-hunt???.

It was often said that doing this intellectual theft is a clear evidence of the fall down of the ability of people today to critically think. A particular work by Martin (1994) widened the parameters for plagiarism. He stated that the term should include second acknowledgement of references, use of ghost writers proper, use of quotations and quotation marks albeit the primary material source has been properly been acknowledged, professionals who write speeches for certain personalities, and the writing of corporate proposals and reports. Some definitions also come as a failure to include a proper bibliography.

Such definitions are becoming more of desperate attempts of educational institutions to drastically patent all things they see. Several writers and authors have already discussed about things to be known on plagiarism to argue between ??? unintentional??? or ??? unconscious??? plagiarism. The idea can be utilized in two different means. First, it is, from time to time used to illustrate a student who normally has an idea what the rule is all about, yet in a case or two falls short in acknowledging their sources of material, be wrong about the limitations between rational information that does not already require the proper citations against more obscure or longer material references, or simply paraphrasing without the initiative to be able to properly cite the author that was used.. If this is the case, the student was responsible of a violation of common and proper decorum, and not plagiarism, and the urgency to have her specialized decisions repatriated.

Stating things like that of plagiarism produces an embellished idea of tenacity and scope of the problem is basically highfaluting. It is also probable either to require students to become overly careful to the point where students acknowledge everything or anyone, however it is common, or even to just let things be and say that it is utterly an impossible thing to avoid plagiarizing even if most people would try, so practically, the point is too pathetic. Practice in other ways of unconscious plagiarism is like depicting a certain student unconsciously reproduces or copy the sequences of words being used in some material source. One could just imagine a student taking down notes from his source of materials, then drafting a paper and instinctively duplicating or strongly akin to some or most of the wordings used in the particular source. Derived to its rational generalization, this description of plagiarism means that any writer with a unique and specific method defined by some other writer or writers possibly will be indicted for the commitment of plagiarism.

Anyone who utilizes a twist of fate or a distinguishing technique of managing information that one could possibly learn from another person is said to be guilty of plagiarism. This particular explanation of the term plagiarism is so comprehensive and very insignificant so as to be ineffective. The inability to be able to differentiate between accidental imitation and placing oneself as the author of a paper hackneyed directly from the Internet from cut and paste methods diminishes the description of the term ??? plagiarism??? to the extent wherein it becomes meaningless. So what is so confusing in resource gathering? There are certain factors that usually lead up to committing the actual practice of dishonesty and ending up in claiming rights of ownership of particular works. Also, what is so confusing is with the choice of resources that individuals choose may not be appropriate at all to the submissions that they are required to make.

First is the cultural factor. The particular notion that a writer has sole rights of claim of certain collection of words could be considered as an absurd idea especially for students living in various cultural domains (“ Why Do Students Plagiarize? ,” 2001). For some societies, imitating others??? ideas or words is a lofty yet humbling form of adulation. As the cliche goes: ??? Imitation is the best form of flattery???, in the English-speaking world, it is called plagiarism. The particular idea that words could be “ owned” by someone or anyone for that matter is an offshoot of the Western civilization. “ Many non-Westerners have a very difficult time understanding that a person can “ own” discourse.

For many Asian students in composition classes, proper acknowledgement of the language and ideas of others is a very difficult concept to understand, much less master . . . Furthermore, in the West, . .

. there is a strong connection between ownership and selfhood, with the implication that whatever one owns (language included) makes up one’s personal identity” (“ Why Students Plagiarize,” 2006) Second are the internal factors or those that involve the personality of the person and the situation that he or she lives in. This results to instances wherein interviews, which is one of the best forms of gathering primary data are overlooked because of the fear of initiating and maintaining conversations. In universities in particular, undergraduate students more often than not, do not have the enough amount of organizational or communication skills essential to be able to accomplish a long research paper and can therefore be concussed in pages fewer than that required. In this particular situation, a student can become inundated by the long and arduous task and just resort to plagiarism. The external environment is the third factor to consider in this case.

Usually, pressures that individuals get from their family around them and personal acquaintances may cause a huge amount of pressure on the students to, say, sustain a particular grade level or weighted average whatever it takes even if learning would not be a primary cause. Most of the time, one thing that really matters to the student plagiarist are grades and practically nothing much less especially if they are trying it very hard to maintain their standings for their respective jobs, scholarships, or even admission into certain law schools. The focus then shifts to spending time doing inappropriate and insignificant things like partying, dating, working, or simply talking about anything but the subject needed for submission. This results to the absence of time to gather data and utilize the appropriate processes needed. Additionally, “ Students may also not be as personally interested in their own education versus their career aspirations. Even students who are concerned about the learning part of their education may justify plagiarism based on the fear that others are already cheating, causing “ unfair competition’” (“ Why Students Plagiarize,” 2006).

For some if not most of the students today, knowledge may not always be the most important purpose of the educational system. All they care about is to be able to get the certain amount of credentials or just simply the ability to pass the paper on time. This way of philosophy can end up with students mitigating educational offences for what they only call for is to accomplish the task, the necessity for the grade to be obtained, or as pathetic as it may seem, get over with the class. Another external factor comes with the source of information. Usually, individuals gather information through the internet. Yet another problem sets in wherein several students in the undergraduate degree do not have an idea as to how to use the search databases for journal literatures, library resources, or to use other reference materials.

Also, more students tend to be unable to decisively assess sources from the internet affecting the student’s way of writing and the entire research processes as a whole. It is therefore necessary to keep in mind that quality control on the Internet does not exist and hoax sites are very common and it is therefore necessary to have the knowledge in distinguishing the real ones and the fake ones. Recent studies also point out that up to 60% of undergraduate students do not have the ability to differentiate plagiarized and paraphrased literature (“ Why Students Plagiarize,” 2006). The predicament is even exaggerated when students necessitate paraphrasing strange technical terms and vocabularies.

A particular study published in Psychological Reports states that “ students will use writing strategies that result in plagiarism when they face the task of paraphrasing advanced technical text for which they may lack the proper cognitive resources with which to process it” (“ Why Students Plagiarize,” 2006). The failure to tell apart the difference between paraphrased text and plagiarized text, and incorrect acknowledgement of material sources, are frequently the principal reasons for unintentional plagiarism. What do institutions expect from outputs? Almost all faculties believe in the idea that they should be the primary one concerned in dealing with incidents of misbehavior. It usually goes with their belief they alone should tackle disobedience as part of hierarchal procedures, faculty contribute to the accountability with staff and students for monitoring student performance (“ Week x Lecture: Academic Honesty,” 2006). The gravity and frequency of incidences of problems such as plagiarism, especially in the academic community, has gone out to a level wherein actions on how to handle such occurrences have become a major priority for faculty members.

The students are informed that all of them have access to their respective English Department’s policy on plagiarism through handouts given to them and highlights the point that it is a grave misconduct and is a ground for expulsion. Students, to be specific, are encouraged to get assistance from their respective reference librarians in respective libraries at certain campuses. Doing so would provide the right kind of professional help and could save time in finding the right type of information. Academic institutions also encourage group discussions and interviews as the best source of certain outputs.

Usually, gathering data can already be done in this way and writing outputs, therefore, for submission can be easily be accomplished. Some universities are reacting to this by revising the student handbooks or creating adapted manuals. Through these modified honor codes and associated processes, the institution evidently communicates that academic integrity is a major institutional priority. In addition, students play a significant role through the judicial board and other educational roles by informing other students about the code (“ Week x Lecture: Academic Honesty,” 2006). Ways to choose the right options The discoveries of these rampant confusion raises an even more heightened hysteria and further questions the honesty and credibility of writers, students, and professors alike. The growing dependence on the Internet that our current time provides as an efficient research tool makes things a whole lot easy to end up committing plagiarism without evaluating their options.

More than ever, the need to detect such of an act has become a major concern in both the professional and academic domains. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, among others, the primary source of plagiarized resource materials, could also be used to detect the presence of the act. This could be done by typing in successive sentences enclosed in quotation marks. In no time, the professor could actually view the possible sources to which the certain sentences were possibly copied from.

However, classifying a certain site or a literature as the source could sometimes be misleading. In some cases, there are articles that have really been done by the writer himself. It??? s just that the topic has already been discussed over and over by a lot of other writers and basically, if fate has it, ends up with the same words, phrases, or even paragraphs. This is not impossible especially if those literatures are all found over the net. It maybe factual that bit is actually exciting to be able to discover plagiarized works but one has to have the right amount of persistence in doing so. There are even some non-profit organizations that help teachers to fight of the incidence of plagiarism like Integriguard and Plagiarism.

org. These organizations run certain software that could detect all possible sources of literature that a student may claim to be his or hers. What they do is to highlight all suspicious passages and list all possible sources, posting the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) at the top in color codes as well as the percentage of plagiarism incidence. What is to be done? There certainly will be a very high probability of a writer to copy someone else??? s thoughts recurrently without even realizing it nowadays. To help lessen the difficulty of plagiarism, however, the faculty in charge may require their students to submit their outline for their paper works in as much as a week prior to the due date of their works. The faculty can also lend help to students to be able to acquire writing and research skills by collaborating with their respective libraries and instructional departments.

Also, the students may also be grouped instead of doing things individually so as to diminish the possibility of plagiarism and later require each group to make progress reports relating to the course of their respective works. This way, the teachers could be able to track each work group efficiently to avoid the occurrence of ??? word borrowing???. Basically, the teacher or professor can also detect if there indeed is plagiaristic passages in a student??? s work by simply analyzing the wording, style, structure of the whole paper, etc. On the whole, these days, anyone from practically anywhere in the world may use search engines over the internet could find a barrage of articles, papers, researches, and other significant literature about one thing on a single topic. So how can one say that he or she has the sole right or ownership for that matter of ideas that many people may present to be theirs? Is it enough to state that it already is an infringement of intellectual property when in fact intellect is not merely confined with a particular person writing some published material? Saying that the use of an ordinary term ??? plagiarism??? is so obscure for one to be penalized for the act of contempt, for people, generally students, most of whom are totally ignorant that they actually need to acknowledge their material sources need to be informed; if not, the idea of doing plagiarism without even knowing it is completely an overstatement and should be rendered pointless. Referenceshttp://www. uwgb. edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/PlagiarNonsense. HTMhttps://arlweb. msha. gov/TRAINING/trainingtips/trainingeval/Evaluation%20Tip%203. pdf

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