Long essay 2 — Plagiarism

Essay question:

Having a clearly defined plagiarism policy is not sufficient to prevent

student plagiarism. Discuss.

Full name: Ren Lingge

Class number: 10. 18
Word count: 2180

1
The reasons and solutions of plagiarism has long been the subject of debate since it
emerged with university education centuries ago. According to Mallon (1989),
plagiarism stems from the Latin term “plagium” embodying the meaning of kidnap.
Subsequently, plagiarism is literally regarded as “sloppy referencing to verbatim
transcription with no crediting of sources” (Hawley, 1984, as cited in Larkham &
Manns, 2002). Nowadays, plagiarism is generally defined as using others’ ideas in
your own work without acknowledgment and pretending to create those ideas initially.
(Sutherland-Smith, 2005). This essay will demonstrate that merely clear plagiarism
policy of high educational institutions is far from sufficient to curb plagiarism since
preventing plagiarism is a shared responsibility. First of all, students, faculty, and
university are supposed to possess a consistent perception of plagiarism and
plagiarism policies. Moreover, since plagiarism is a culturally based concept, cultural
differences should be taken into account. Additionally, government’ s function like
legislation and related departments should be seen when plagiarism become a shadow
industry. Although, all factors discussed above have potential to discourage student
plagiarism in some ways, eliminating plagiarism can be a complicated and time-
consuming procedure.

The functions of plagiarism policies in universities can be restrained because teachers

and students may perceive plagiarism and why it happens in different ways. On the
one hand, students are more likely to distinguish plagiarism cases unsuccessfully,
especially when complex scenarios are involved in (Foltýnek et al, 2014). Moreover,
Sutherland-Smithm (2005) and Yeo, S. (2007) hold a similar contention that for some
freshman, even the basic concept which demand students to avoid verbatim can be
rather confusing, owing that rote learning for first-year students is a way to mimetic
practice which is not only acceptable but desirable. As a result, students could be
upset and confused about the accusation of plagiarism, and the policies of plagiarism
may become less convincing to students. A possible solution to improve this situation
could be teaching students use references appropriately since they reach a consensus
that the use of references can avoid plagiarism to some extent. According to Foltýnek
et al (2014), when in-text citation and references in the copied part can be seen in the
case, less teachers and students determine the case as plagiarism. On the other hand,
teachers hold different views between students when it comes to the reasons of
plagiarism. Foltýnek et al (2014) illustrate that teachers are likely to owe plagiarism to
students’ laziness, lack of skills, and inadvertence. Conversely, students are more
prone to think about time limit, overloaded academic work, and the sense of urgency.
It can be seen that most of the teachers may not clear about students’ real needs, as a
result, they are unable to help students tackle the obstacles and avoid plagiarism. One
possible way forward would be to reinforce closed communication between teachers
and students, enhancing students’ time management ability and assisting students’
writing process by offering them background source (Foltýnek et al, 2014). However,
it is worth noting that in the assisting process, teachers are supposed to notice the
extent of their help. If supervisors help their students excessively, this may be
considered as another form of collusion which is forbidden by universities according
to Singh and Remenyi (2016). Although the two ideas above are interesting, they lack
generalisability since the participants of the study of Foltýnek et al are all from
Europe who can only represent European teachers’ and students’ positions of
plagiarism to some extent. Overall, the disagreement of the definition and the reasons
of plagiarism between teachers and students hinder the implement of plagiarism
policies. Hence, teachers and students are supposed to collaborate with each other and
enhance communication to fight against plagiarism together.

Some of the teachers are not willing to implement plagiarism policies which weaken
the effect of these policies. Firstly, teachers tend to choose slight punishment and
avoid discussing their students’ plagiarism overtly out of their own interest. Foltýnek
et al (2014) shows that teachers sometimes are reluctant to impose harsh punishment
or expose it publicly to school community, even though the plagiarism of students
have been proved by detection software. Alternatively, rewrite is one of the most
popular choice of teachers. Sutherland-Smith (2005) also illustrate that teachers do
not want to damage their academic image since plagiarism of students is regarded as
teachers’ failure and might impact their academic performance and even promotion.
Secondly, even some teachers regard prevention of plagiarism as their responsibility,
according to Foltýnek et al (2014) and Sutherland-Smith (2005)’ s contention, they do
not have abundant time to dispose student plagiarism. Because it can be rather time-
consuming to investigate and collect related evidence. Simultaneously, university
teachers are occupied with prodigious amount of daily work. Thirdly, after the
investigation process, it is possible that the school committee verdict this plagiarism
case invalid and the suspicious student will just be warned without punishment
(Sutherland-Smith, 2005). This can be a really heavy blow to the enthusiasm of
teacher and result in a corrupt environment which indulges academic misconduct. A
possible option might be, according to Sutherland-Smith (2005), implementing
penalties of plagiarism according to standard formula which has been acknowledged
by all of the teachers, students, committees in universities. Although the case above
can be seen as a certain example of plagiarism policy implementation in university,
the sample size of Sutherland-Smith’ s study is comparatively small, covering 11 EAP
teachers of a certain subject in the same university. Besides Sutherland-Smith(2005)’ s
solution, university administration should also assist teachers to look into plagiarism
cases, in this way, the committee can share the workload and understand the
circumstance of these cases better. To sum up, some of the university teachers do not
take advantage of plagiarism policies actively due to three reasons including the
worry of their reputation and career, lack of time, and distrust toward school
committee. Therefore, to prevent student plagiarism more effectively, teachers and
committee need cooperation so that they can operate punishment mechanism in
university orderly and completely to restrain student plagiarism.

Plagiarism policies should not only be clear but also be specific considering the
distinctive perceptions of plagiarism in different cultural and educational background.
Differences of plagiarism perceptions between western and eastern world exist mainly
in two aspects. One is different definition of paraphrasing. According to Foltýnek et
al. (2014), failed, deficient paraphrasing or paraphrasing without references can result
in plagiarism. Conversely, Indonesian indicate that only verbatim can be defined as
plagiarism (Kutieleh and Adiningrum, 2011). Another is different culture root. In
western countries, the basis of plagiarism is human right, individualism, and
ownership which are sensitive issues to the westerns (Foltýnek et al., 2014).
Therefore, copying others’ academic work can be considered as an invasion of
individual property ownership and copyright (Kutieleh and Adiningrum, 2011).
Whereas, some Asian countries emphasize collectivism and community in their
traditional culture and not introducing notion of ownership (Kutieleh and Adiningrum,
2011). Moreover, when Indonesian overseas students start to learn about the local
perceptions of plagiarism in university, it seems that they do not fully utilize the
supporting facilities offered by school because of language barrier and ill-informed
assumption. Also, students are too busy to learn the knowledge of plagiarism since the
related session are usually taken place in the first several weeks (Kutieleh and
Adiningrum, 2011). A number of solutions to this problem have been suggested. First,
students are supposed to understand different notion of plagiarism in the country they
are going to study in. Second, students need to adjust themselves to the new school
life as soon as possible and obey the regulations in university. Additionally, schools
should make further effort offering oversea students extra assistance, such as mentor
communication and detailed introduction in campus website. It can also be helpful if
school readjusts the schedule to delivery anti-plagiarism knowledge. However,
although these would seem beneficial approaches in decision making process, it is
clear that the findings in Kutieleh and Adiningrum (2011)’ s study only reflect the
position of Indonesian students studying in Australia, though this can be seen as
epitome of the conflict between western and eastern world in terms of plagiarism to
some extent, eastern students from other culture background like Confucian
background have not been covered. In addition, the sample size is rather small, only
33 participants respond this study which makes the study result relatively subjective.
Therefore, further research and solutions still need to be discussed in the future. In a
word, to promote educational justice, when tackling student plagiarism, policies
making process and policies implementation should consider the specific condition of
international students. Students from different countries should also take
responsibility to coordinate their own study life and academic perceptions in time.

It seems that plagiarism in university is becoming a profitable industry including

essay mill and ghostwriting which cannot be controlled merely by school policies.
Government’ s role should be seen in this case. Ghostwriting used to refer to the
behaviour that employing writers to conduct a piece of work like autobiography
according to customers’ personal requirement (Singh and Remenyi, 2016). It seems
that this type of trade does not violates ethics and laws. However, in these years,
ghostwriting has emerged in universities which is regarded as serious academic
misconduct and it have become a new shadow industry online and offline which also
can be seen as essay mill. The evil impact of essay mill includes hindering students’
learning and undermining academic integrity, unfairness to other honest students,
blackmail threat made by essay mill companies, as well as damage of university’ s
reputation. Husbands (2018) shows various policies introduced by some of the
educational institutions to tickle this issue as followed. Specifically, institutions
explain the serious consequences of essay mill to students. In addition, they try to find
the reasons why some of the students have to resort to those unscrupulous companies.
Meanwhile, staff in university work on blocking access to essay mill websites from
the university servers. However, the effect of these strategies seems to be limited, the
advertisements of ghostwriting and essay mill continue unabated in campus since the
routes of propaganda method are numerous. Therefore, Husbands (2018)
demonstrates that some of the faculty in university appeal that government should
take actions like legislation to respond to this essay mill industry since this global
issue of academic fraud cannot be simply solved by the resources available to
university (Out-Law, 2018). Out-Law (2018) also shows that some countries like
Australia, New Zealand and Ireland have already introduced new legislation to
address essay mill. However, Out-Law (2018) also argues that “ legislation would not
serve as a ‘magic bullet’” and university should continue to play their role by
detecting plagiarism, monitoring students, and eliminating advertisement of essay mill
in campus. Although arguments of Husbands and Out-Law reveal part of the current
situation of plagiarism in university including model and scale of essay mill industry,
reactions of university as well as government’ s potential to combat this shadow
industry, these two sources are published by newspaper and a firm website
respectively with a certain interest orientation. Thus, the academic significance and
objectivity of these arguments need further discussion. In summary, it can be seen that
colleges and universities have limited ability in the face of the writing industry driven
by huge interests in the market, and the law is the most powerful weapon to govern
this illegal industry. At the same time, colleges and universities should continue to
strengthen the construction of campus to reduce students' demand for such improper
transaction, so as to fundamentally diminishes the existence of essay mill market.

In conclusion, to combat student plagiarism, it is not sufficient to rely solely on school

policies, because this process is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Additionally,
plagiarism has become not only a problem of academic misconduct, but also a
common social issue, so it requires multilateral cooperation. The process of
negotiation and communication between teachers, students and school staff requires a
long term of persistence, so as to implement the school policies better. The cultural
backgrounds of international students are diverse and complex, which makes the
formulation and implementation of university policies more difficult. What is worse,
when plagiarism becomes profitable, some unscrupulous companies are also involved
in, turning student plagiarism from pure student misconduct into a gray industry.
Meanwhile, the related legislative process just in its infancy. However, it can be seen
that plagiarism issue is being taken more and more seriously. For example, in the UK,
besides school policies and laws, relevant department such as the Quality Assurance
Agency for Higher Education is playing its part. And New department such as the UK
Centre for Academic Integrity is also being considered to build. It can be seen that
although the problem of plagiarism has become complicated these days, the
countermeasures are also escalating. Therefore, it can be predicted that as long as all
sectors of society actively perform their duties and obligations, plagiarism will be
controlled to a large extent.
References:
[1] Foltýnek, T., Rybička, J. and Demoliou, C. (2014) Do students think what teachers
think about plagiarism? International Journal for Educational Integrity, 10(1), pp. 21–
30.
[2] Husbands, C. (2018) We need a legislative ban on essay mills. Times Higher
Education (THE). 17 October. Available at:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/we-need-legislative-ban-essay-mills
(Accessed: 15 June 2020).
[3] Kutieleh, S. and Adiningrum, T.S. (2011) How different are we? Understanding
and managing plagiarism between East and West. Journal of Academic Language and
Learning, 5(2), pp.A88–A98.
[4] Out-Law (2018) UK should ban 'essay mills', say leading academics. Out-Law
Available at: https://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2018/september/uk-ban-essay-
mills/
(Accessed: 15 June 2020).
[5] Singh, S. and Remenyi, D. (2016) Plagiarism and ghostwriting: The rise in
academic misconduct. South African Journal of Science, 112(5-6), pp.1–7.
[6] Sutherland-Smith, W. (2005) Pandora's box: Academic perceptions of student
plagiarism in writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4 (1), pp.83–95.
[7] Yeo, S. (2007). First year university science and engineering students’
understanding of plagiarism. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(2). DOI
10.1080/07294360701310813