PLAGIARISM AND INDIAN RESEARCH

Monisha Thirunavukkarasu

M19CP019

Date: 2nd November 2019

 Plagiarism is a copyright infringement, moreover, it is taking another author’s language,

musings, thoughts or articulations and portraying them as one’s work ((Stepchyshyn & Nelson,

2007). This act of violation is considered as “academic dishonesty” and also known as a “breach

of journalistic ethics”. There are consequences to be paid for when caught with plagiarism, such

as penalties, deferral, dismissal from school or workplace, fine and even confinement (Osterberg

& Osterberg, n.d.). As mentioned by Valpy (2005), plagiarism by itself is not a crime but

additionally, it is a “counterfeiting fraud” which can be penalized for in the court for

prejudgments caused by copyright infringement.

Research conducted by Satyanarayana (2010) showed that back in the 2000s more than

half the students who participated in a survey agreed to have plagiarized at least some

information. He also says that the number of people doing this has not reduced and rather has

been increasing with the years. Satyanarayana (2010) explains how 25 years before attempting to

plagiarism was a lot of work, due to the inadequate resources whereas now in the present the

students can find information on the internet and hence plagiarizing is has become easy and it

saves time. In addition to this Satyanarayana (2010) states that the ethics behind plagiarism have

not changed in most cases, however, the ease of technology makes individuals sense that the

profits of plagiarism overshadow the jeopardies and the ethical concerns.

Juyal, Thawani & Thaledi (2015) stated that there has been a rise in academic plagiarism

in Indi. The reason for this increase is due to the pressure the authors go thorough to publish an

article, inadequate training in ethical scientific writing, unawareness, misunderstanding, and

failure to have constitutional controls. They stated that as there are no proper policies established

in India to deal with this misconduct, it has led to an increase in several plagiarism cases. In
addition to that Juyal, Thawani & Thaledi (2015) mention that if this act of the individuals in

India continues, it can have adverse effects on the growth of India’s higher education system.

Due to the absence of resources, proficiency and mainly the authority to conduct the

confirmatory investigations, the journal editors are not able to take any action to avoid

plagiarism. Firstly, to go about investigating research misconduct, in other words, plagiarism, it

is a time-consuming work Moreover, this investigation needs an established full functional ethics

body with a clear policy on misconduct and plagiarism, however, India does not seem to provide

this requirement. Jayaraman (2012) that to control the plagiarism at a minimal level the authors,

reviewers, and editors are required to portray determination in producing and maintain the

uniqueness in the scientific literature. Though India hopes to establish its self as a “global

player” in science and technology, this set goal seems far-fetched due to the lack of international

reliability and integrity of the scientific research being reported.

Shamim (2012) stated that he had reported an article and it was published in Saudi Dental

Journal in the year 2007 and he explains that his published article was plagiarized by Indian

authors and the respective article was published again in the year 2010 in the Journal of Indian

Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry. Shamim (2012) further elaborates his concerns

and explains that the entire test inclusive of the introduction until the conclusion was copied and

the only change made was the department and the presented case. However even after reporting

this act of plagiarism to the Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry

the abstract of the original author is still available.

Bagla (2019) states that India is creating a unique tiered system to punish plagiarism.

This policy declares that 10% plagiarism in thesis, article, book, research paper or other

document is acceptable however anything more than the mentioned amount and extensive
plagiarism will lead to severe consequences. These set rules have been approved by the

University Grants Commission of India (UGC India), this department of authority heads the

higher education and have mentioned that these rules are obligatory for all universities. In this

new policy, there are 4 tiers for addressing plagiarism. The first one is known as, “similarities up

to 10%”, the second tier, “10% t 40%”, the third tier,” 40% to 60%” and the final fourth

tier,”60% and more”. The first tier does not hold any punishment however from the second tier

onwards the penalties increase with the severity. The second tier requires the student to resubmit

the work and asks the concerned staff to withdraw the plagiarized manuscript. The third tier

suspends the student for a year and the staff member would lose an annual pay rise and is banned

from supervising students for 2 years and finally the fourth tier, the students will be expelled out

of the institution and the concerned faculty member will lose pay increases for 2 years and will

be prohibited to supervise students for 3 years.

In conclusion, there is a drastic increase in many plagiarism cases in India n though it

was not taken into consideration earlier, it is now being carefully looked upon. The new policies

that have been applied to reduce the amount of plagiarism will hopefully give new authors to

publish their work without being worried about it being copied. The originality of an author’s

work will have to be kept to encourage them to continue to research and come up with new

findings.
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