My First Blog -On Plagiarism
Induction Week, day 5!! Lecture on Plagiarism…
One of my favourite lecturers on this course so far, Dr P, began this lecture on plagiarism with an unusually aggressive at times very threatening tone. The overall message to the students attending his lecture? DON’T PLAGIARISE OR ELSE!!!
I sat in the lecture hall contemplating his message and reflecting on my past experiences in higher education. I found myself asking two questions that I have asked myself many times before. The first question was, is discouraging students from plagiarism an effective means of addressing plagiarism? The second question was are universities in any position to lecture anyone on plagiarism?
The answer to both of these questions, inside my mind, was a resounding NO!!!
You cannot cure an illness without addressing its cause. In this following article I look to explain this statement and my answer to the two questions, which I cited above.
Plagiarism is a vast topic. This article aims to briefly explore this topic by discussing its prevalence, its causes, its legal and social ramifications and methods by which it can be prevented.
Typically, papers discussing this topic begin by providing the reader with a definition for plagiarism. This article will instead start by drawing attention to the antithesis of plagiarism, its chief casualty, originality. Originality refers to authentic, novel ideas or work. Original ideas or work are always products of complex, independent, self-assertive minds, minds free of suppression born of fear from challenging the status quo, minds which thanks to enormous amounts effort become dominant in a chosen profession.[1]Originality is perilous. It is rare. It is backbreaking work and plagiarism is the theft of this perilous, rare, backbreaking work by parties often lacking the aforementioned, positive traits essential to originality.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism, simply, as ‘[T]he action or practice of taking someone else’s work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one’s own; Literary theft’.[3] Plagiarism is indeed theft. It is cheating. It is an ‘egregious form of academic misconduct’.[4]
There are many types of plagiarism. The most common include:[5]
- Direct plagiarism – This occurs when one individual copies, word-for-word, another person’s ideas/work, claiming them as their own.
- Paraphrasing plagiarism – This occurs when one person rephrases another’s work/ideas without referencing a source.
- Citing incorrectly – This is a form of plagiarism that involves one stealing another person’s work/ideas without correctly referencing/attributing this work to the individual from whom they took the work/ideas.
- Citing a non-existent source – This involves one citing a non-existent source to support a statement/argument. This can also be considered plagiarism as it falsely attributes work/ideas to individuals who have not contributed to these work/ideas.
Much of the discourse surrounding plagiarism, both in the media and in academia, focusses on students as plagiarists,[6] but plagiarism is not strictly the domain of students. It is also found amongst qualified professionals from all walks of life and at all levels of society; artists, politicians, highly prominent thinkers and researchers, even deans of universities.[7]
Prior to pursuing a career in Law I worked for around seven years in higher education, in research. It is no understatement to pause here and state that the vast majority of researchers that I came across were chronic plagiarists and this plagiarism was not minor but rather a significant aspect of their work. Plagiarism is so prevalent amongst researchers, amongst lecturers, the very same lecturers that discourage students from plagiarism, that in my experience plagiarism amongst students pales in comparison to it. In my experience of research I came across many senior researchers at universities across the UK that were involved in plagiarising the work of students under their responsibility. Many highly prominent researchers exploit and steal the ideas and work of students they are tasked with supervising. Plagiarism of this type did not stop at theft, but often escalated to discrimination, bullying and the utter destruction of individual’s lives and careers.
Plagiarism is a highly prevalent phenomena, particularly in higher education.[8] A report recently published by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education in the UK (QAA) states that over a period of three years, fifty-five thousand undergraduate students were caught, by their universities, in acts of plagiarism.[9] Data relating to plagiarism amongst qualified academics is more difficult to find, but plagiarism amongst this group of individuals is also thought to be high.[10]
Researchers have given many reasons for why people resort to plagiarism. These reasons range from laziness, low moral values and pressure to publish to cultural influences.[11] Suffice it to say that they all without one exception focus their efforts to explain plagiarism directly on the inventions of the plagiarist. You will not, find in any paper or any other text anyone discussing the reason I give for the prevalence of plagiarism and it has little or nothing to do with laziness, pressure to publish and cultural influences. It has little to do with the plagiarist him or herself.
People are heavily influenced by their environment. A poorly organised, mismanaged environment, high in stress, full of corruption and lacking in time and discipline will often breed poorly organised, mismanaged, overly stressed, corrupt individuals, lacking in time and discipline, prone to plagiarism. You can find no better example for this type of environment than in higher education in the UK, where, as was mentioned earlier in this paper, plagiarism is highly prevalent at all levels, more so amongst academics than students. I submit, to you the reader, that the main cause of plagiarism is not found in the plagiarist, but in their environment.
In the UK, universities are autonomous.[12]This means that the public and the government have little influence on universities. Internally, universities set their own policies and investigate their own misconduct and externally they are answerable to charities like the QAA and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA), two quangos, most entirely funded, and in the case of the latter, and this is no witticism, staffed by the very same universities that they are tasked with investigating.[13] Both claim to be independent but are evidently highly conflicted. These quangos are in turn regulated by yet more organisations that have little regulatory effectiveness like The Charity Commission.[14] This flawed, highly conflicted, ineffective structure creates an environment where abuses like plagiarism grow and thrive with little or no consequence, particularly for those in positions of authority.[15]
Whatever the reasons behind plagiarism, be they cultural, institutional, or personal, plagiarism is always very harmful, particularly to those rare, original minds, whose efforts, risks, and sacrifices are stolen and sometimes forever lost to underserving individuals. But the harms of plagiarism are not limited to the direct victims of this disease. No, the harms of plagiarism are far reaching. Plagiarism harms the reputation of the plagiarist, their supervisors, their employer, their publisher. It has financial ramifications that take on the form of reparations for victims. Plagiarism negatively impacts the wellbeing of those involved in cases of plagiarism.[16] By far the most harmful aspect of plagiarism is one that affects the entirety of society. Plagiarism causes those original minds, to whom this paper eluded earlier, on whom society relies for development and progression, to become less inclined to work, to share their ideas with the rest of society. Plagiarism can, in effect, be likened to censorship. It, through fear of theft, censors work. Plagiarism stifles development and progression. I have experienced this diseases first-hand at the many universities where I have done research, some of them highly prominent universities, universities, where academics live in continuous fear, and this is no exaggeration, of having their work stolen by colleagues that are not lay but rather post-graduates, doctors and professors in their chosen profession.
It goes without saying that it is very important to effectively punish and prevent plagiarism through effective laws and effective, independent regulatory structures. In the UK, neither of these items exist. In the UK, plagiarism is not illegal unless it infringes other laws e.g. Copyright Laws.[17]When it does infringe laws it often requires exuberant amounts of money in legal fees to achieve justice. These exuberant fees act as barriers to justice. Additionally, the justice system in this country is designed in such a way as to favour those in authority. Institutions and individuals in positions of authority, directly or indirectly involved in plagiarism have many avenues by which they can muster a strong case, through, for example, free, high standard legal advice and representation in all areas of law, provided to them by unions, entire departments of specialist legal advisors at universities and other public and private companies and organisations. A person lacking authority, lacking the financial means to make a case in court, lacking access to all of these benefits only available to those in authority, aiming to bring such people to justice will instantly become at a disadvantage. Here in the UK, the justice system is heavily biased in favour of those in positions of power and control.
When seeking remedy to plagiarism, organisations and researchers often target students. It is easy to target students, but the cure for this disease that is plagiarism, a disease which is both systematic and pervasive, is not found in mainly targeting those most vulnerable, least qualified and least capable of defending themselves affectively, amongst the community of plagiarists in society, students, but rather those in authority and their flawed systems that have created an environment that has allowed plagiarism to grow and thrive.
Dear Dr P.,
I understand that it might be an obligation for you to dissuade students from plagiarism, but this approach will never have a significant, lasting impact.
In addition to what I have written in this paper please take the following suggestions into consideration:
Teach individuals how to protect their ideas/work.
Shift the focus from the plagiarist to their victim. You can learn much about the cause of plagiarism from the victims of plagiarists.
Pursue changes at the top, not at the bottom, where changes will have no affect on society, but a temporary, minor effect on isolated individuals.
P.S. I enjoy your lectures, your efforts very much. Thank you for making our welcome to the university so thought provoking and exciting.
References:
Deepak Juyal and others, ‘Plagiarism: An Egregious Form of Misconduct’ (2015) 7/2 NAJMS <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4358054/?tool=pmcentrez&report=abstract> accessed 21 September 2019.
Donald Macleod, ‘Durham Dean Suspended for Plagiarism’ The Guardian (London, 30 October 2007) <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/oct/30/highereducation.news> accessed 23 September 2019; Kim Walden, Originality Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age (University of Michigan 2011).
Fintan Culwin and Thomas Lancaster, ‘Plagiarism Issues for Higher Education’ (2001) 31/2 VINE <https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/03055720010804005/full/html> accessed 22 September 2019
Frank Barron, ‘The Deposition Towards Originality’ (1955) 51 JAP 478.
Jan Bamford and others, ‘International Students and Plagiarism: An Snalysis of the Reasons for Plagiarism Among International Foundation Students’ (2005) 2/2 IUTL <http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/173/1/InvestigationsInUniversityTeachingAndLearning_v2n2_p17-22.pdf> accessed 21/10/2019
Jen Wiss-Carline, ‘Is Plagiarism Illegal?’ <https://www.plagiarismchecker.net/is-plagiarism-illegal.php> accessed 24 September 2019.
Maria João Ferro, ‘Academic Plagiarism: Yielding to Temptation’ (2016) 13/1 BJESBS <https://repositorio.ipl.pt/bitstream/10400.21/5453/1/Ferro1312015BJESBS20535.pdf> accessed 23 September 2019
NAO, ‘The regulatory effectiveness of the Charity Commission’ (National Audit Office 2013) <https://www.nao.org.uk/report/regulatory-effectiveness-charity-commission-2/> accessed 24 September 2019.
Nick Hillman, ‘Why we must protect university autonomy’ (Higher Education Policy Institute 3 April 2017) <https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2017/04/03/4014/> accessed 24 September 2019.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, (3rd edn, 2006) <https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.brunel.ac.uk/view/Entry/144939?redirectedFrom=plagiarism> accessed 21 September 2019.
QAA, ‘How We Are Funded’ (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2019) <https://www.qaa.ac.uk/about-us/how-we%27re-run/how-we%27re-funded> accessed 24 September 2019.
QAA, ‘Plagiarism in Higher Education’ (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2016) <https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/quality-code/plagiarism-in-higher-education-2016.pdf?sfvrsn=308cfe81_4> accessed 24 September 2019.
Sanna Vehviläinen, Erika Löfström and Anne Nevgi, ‘Dealing with Plagiarism in the Academic Community: Emotional Engagement and Moral Distress’ (2018) 75/1 HE
<https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.brunel.ac.uk/article/10.1007%2Fs10734-017-0112-6> accessed 24 September 2019.
Sarah Marsh, ‘Cheating at UK’s Top Universities Soars by 40%’ The Guardian (London, 29 April 2018 <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/29/cheating-at-top-uk-universities-soars-by-30-per-cent> accessed 22 September 2019.
Seung-Yun Shin, ‘Plagiarism’, (2019) 49/2 JPIS <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6494771/> 21 September 2019.
Turnitin, ‘The Aftermath of Plagiarism’ <http://en.writecheck.com/the-aftermath-of-plagiarism> accessed 24 September 2019.
Yolande Reyneke and Christina C Shuttleworth, ‘Training Unashamedly Ethical Accounting Graduates in an E-learning Environment’ (ICEL 2018 13th International Conference on e-Learning, The Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa, July 2018) <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KEJmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA362&dq=plagiarism+causes&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK9-Xli-3kAhUOEcAKHQ4WDV0Q6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=plagiarism%20causes&f=false> accessed: 20 September 2019.
[1] Frank Barron, ‘The Deposition Towards Originality’ (1955) 51 JAP 478.
[2] Yolande Reyneke and Christina C Shuttleworth, ‘Training Unashamedly Ethical Accounting Graduates in an E-learning Environment’ (ICEL 2018 13th International Conference on e-Learning, The Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa, July 2018) <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KEJmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA362&dq=plagiarism+causes&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK9-Xli-3kAhUOEcAKHQ4WDV0Q6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=plagiarism%20causes&f=false> accessed: 20 September 2019.
[3] Oxford English Dictionary Online, (3rd edn, 2006) <https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.brunel.ac.uk/view/Entry/144939?redirectedFrom=plagiarism> accessed 21 September 2019.
[4] Deepak Juyal and others, ‘Plagiarism: An Egregious Form of Misconduct’ (2015) 7/2 NAJMS <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4358054/?tool=pmcentrez&report=abstract> accessed 21 September 2019.
[5] Seung-Yun Shin, ‘Plagiarism’, (2019) 49/2 JPIS <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6494771/> 21 September 2019.
[6] Fintan Culwin and Thomas Lancaster, ‘Plagiarism Issues for Higher Education’ (2001) 31/2 VINE <https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/03055720010804005/full/html> accessed 22 September 2019; Jan Bamford and others, ‘International Students and Plagiarism: An Snalysis of the Reasons for Plagiarism Among International Foundation Students’ (2005) 2/2 IUTL <http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/173/1/InvestigationsInUniversityTeachingAndLearning_v2n2_p17-22.pdf> accessed 21/10/2019; Sarah Marsh, ‘Cheating at UK’s Top Universities Soars by 40%’ The Guardian (London, 29 April 2018 <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/apr/29/cheating-at-top-uk-universities-soars-by-30-per-cent> accessed 22 September 2019
[7] Donald Macleod, ‘Durham Dean Suspended for Plagiarism’ The Guardian (London, 30 October 2007) <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/oct/30/highereducation.news> accessed 23 September 2019; Kim Walden, Originality Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age (University of Michigan 2011).
[8] Maria João Ferro, ‘Academic Plagiarism: Yielding to Temptation’ (2016) 13/1 BJESBS <https://repositorio.ipl.pt/bitstream/10400.21/5453/1/Ferro1312015BJESBS20535.pdf> accessed 23 September 2019
[9] QAA, ‘Plagiarism in Higher Education’ (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2016) <https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/quality-code/plagiarism-in-higher-education-2016.pdf?sfvrsn=308cfe81_4> accessed 24 September 2019.
[10] Juyal and others (n 4)
[11] ibid and Reyneke and Shuttleworth (n 2)
[12] Nick Hillman, ‘Why we must protect university autonomy’ (Higher Education Policy Institute 3 April 2017) <https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2017/04/03/4014/> accessed 24 September 2019.
[13] QAA, ‘How We Are Funded’ (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education 2019) <https://www.qaa.ac.uk/about-us/how-we%27re-run/how-we%27re-funded> accessed 24 September 2019.
[14] NAO, ‘The regulatory effectiveness of the Charity Commission’ (National Audit Office 2013) <https://www.nao.org.uk/report/regulatory-effectiveness-charity-commission-2/> accessed 24 September 2019.
[15] Turnitin, ‘The Aftermath of Plagiarism’ <http://en.writecheck.com/the-aftermath-of-plagiarism> accessed 24 September 2019.
[16] Sanna Vehviläinen, Erika Löfström and Anne Nevgi, ‘Dealing with Plagiarism in the Academic Community: Emotional Engagement and Moral Distress’ (2018) 75/1 HE
<https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.brunel.ac.uk/article/10.1007%2Fs10734-017-0112-6> accessed 24 September 2019.
[17] Jen Wiss-Carline, ‘Is Plagiarism Illegal?’ <https://www.plagiarismchecker.net/is-plagiarism-illegal.php> accessed 24 September 2019.
Diaries of A Law Student 