Why Students Plagiarize and Consequences of Plagiarism Assignment - 1

Why Students Plagiarize and Consequences of Plagiarism - Assignment Example This paper seeks to try and identify exactly what is meant by plagiarism, the reason as to why it is so extensive and the probable effects of plagiarism on students and institutions. According to Anderson (1998), plagiarism can essentially be defined as the act of using another person’s words without undertaking to give the person any of the credit that is due to that person. Plagiarism is seen to have its root set in the traditional Western civilization concept of property ownership. During the historical period of the Greco-Roman era, it was common to find orators and authors frequently borrowing from one another, however, the discovery of such theft was usually met with a lot of public ridicule and sarcasm. Intellectual property protection can be deemed to be primarily concerned about money and the freedom for an individual to develop various ideas into a number of products and works that will be found to be of immense benefit to society. To encourage discovery and creative development among its citizens, the law is designed so as to give an originator a certain amount of time within which he will be allowed to control both the content and disbursement of any of the products which might happen to result from his idea. In the event that someone happens to seat al use this original material, they are liable to be charged with infringement of property. There are a number of reasons as to why plagiarism is found to be so extensive among students within higher education. In a study conducted on a sample size of 5000 students, the results of the study suggested that an estimated three-quarter of the sample group admitted to having engaged in some form of academic cheating. A large number of students in the sample group recorded as having previously plagiarized supports the notion that while it is possible to reduce plagiarism in the various institutions of higher learning, it is nevertheless impossible to completely eliminate it.  16 percent of the students in the study cited the reason as to why they plagiarized was a result of the belief that they would not be caught, students were aware of the rather immense pressure that the university staff were under as a result of teaching and marking the results of a large number of students and believed that they could be able to safely take the chance with submitting plagiarized work.