Getting rid of plagiarism
Plagiarism is the copying of another author’s thoughts and ideas from his or her work with the intention of showing it as your own without giving the original author proper credit and due for his or her work. Normally plagiarising nowadays is done more commonly in the world of academics by students. Of course, it exists in a lot of other fields also such as business, arts and so many others but the field of academics is where it has been seen most commonly and where most cases are recorded. These students do it because it is a very convenient and easy option to turn to. There is almost no hard work involved and it hardly takes any time which is why so many students don’t think twice before plagiarising another author’s work. What plagiarism does is that it makes student comfortable with the idea of copying from other people’s works. Such an act, what it does is that it promotes unoriginal thinking. When students copy or plagiarise from others they slowly and steadily stop thinking in a fresh and original manner. They get used to the idea of not thinking for themselves and also not putting in effort themselves. The very basic and essential concepts of hard work, originality and patience become alien to them. This is the worst consequence of such acts.
Plagiarism has to be stopped in the absolute beginning and as soon as possible. It should not be taken lightly under any circumstances at all. The problem with not taking efforts and measures in stopping it in the beginning is that it will become a real issue later on if it is left unattended at the present moment. Not nipping this dishonest practice in the bud will only cause it to become huge, beyond our control and also make it unstoppable in case people were to become comfortable with it. These people, once they become comfortable with this practice, will become lesser intellectually and do nothing but copy from others without thinking by themselves or applying their own mind to problems. This sort of practice is a serious threat to all the original thinkers who think freely and do not rely on other for ideas and bring out original thoughts and ideas. The frequent occurrence of plagiarism will discourage such original thinkers from coming up with new ideas for fear of not receiving any credit or acknowledgement for them. This is why battling this practice is not just the business of the original thinkers but all of us if we wish to keep new and free thoughts alive.
Teachers can and should play an important role when it comes to combating this bad practice. Students at all levels of education are plagiarising in all possible formats of their assignments, right from simple essays and articles to college level term papers to doctorate level thesis, they are plagiarising everywhere. Indulging in plagiarism only gets them into all sorts of wrong habits. As mentioned before they stop thinking for themselves, forget the importance of hard work and patience and only steal ideas from others without coming up with any new ones themselves. This is why this practice needs to be removed as soon as possible. Again, teachers can play a very important role and need to act in the following way to help out. Firstly, they need to be strict whenever they see any instances of plagiarising done by students. They need to deal in a harsh manner with such students. On the other hand, they should give encouragement and motivation to those students who wish to be original and those who are willing to put in hard work and be patient. On their part, they should use anti plagiarism software and also specify the resources that students should use while doing their assignments. They should not push their students too much for fear of making them resort to copying and stealing. Most importantly they should tell students of the importance of not plagiarising and of being original. But mainly, laws need to be stricter and be enforced properly to make everyone realise the seriousness of such a practice, including students. One can read further about this on the theplagiarism.com.
