Plagiarism

Plagiarism is not a new phenomenon, it has become an issue of growing concern across universities in Malaysia and internationally, by given the proliferation of easily accessible electronic resources in recent times, students can ‘cut and paste’ easily from the text. This can sometimes lead to assignments being submitted that are inadequately referenced or, worse still, assignments being submitted that are largely someone else work.

Plagiarism can comes in various forms, mostly is, stealing material from another source and passing it off as their own by buying a paper from a research service either pre-written or specially written; copying a whole paper from a source text without proper acknowledgement; submitting someone else work without their knowledge.

Various factors for students to commit plagiarism have been stated. Among them are :

Misconception of plagiarism. Students are not aware that copying and lifting information from the internet and other sources are considered cheating because they do not understand what plagiarism is, and they do not realize that it is wrong.

Poor time management and lack of preparation. Students often do not have the time management skills necessary to complete a large research paper and can become overwhelmed by the large task and procrastinate. When pressed for time, they will find that plagiarism is the easiest way to complete the paper.

The convenience of the internet. There are millions of websites on the internet which are providing the data about all fields. Therefore, when a student has to produce a research paper, instead of going to the library and purchasing the books, the best way is copying through the website just in a couple of seconds. Students can even find completed research papers online; they simply copy and paste it to a new document, make a few adjustments, and it is ready to turn in.

Laziness of the students. Once the students find what they want from the internet without any hardworking, and get the...