AKADEMI SENI DAN TEKNOLOGI KREATIF (ASTiF)

AT10603 PENULISAN AKADEMIK (SEKSYEN 3)

ULASAN ARTIKEL

TAJUK:

THE ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF PLAGIARISM AND GHOSTWRITING IN AN OPEN

SOCIETY

DISEDIAKAN OLEH:
MOHD HANAFIE BIN M.SJARIF (BC21160227)
 Plagiarism is the theft of intellectual property. Plagiarism has always been an issue in an

academic context, but now it seems to spread to other sectors such as medicine and science, as well as

business, manufacturing, military and legal recognition. The moral dilemma of Organizations, human

beings and society may suffer greatly as a result of its implications. This will result in harm to others

for the sake of self -interest. The author of this academic work The author investigates and discusses

the ethical aspects of plagiarism as well as the increase of plagiarism. Through the writings of Kant,

Popper, Kostenbaum, Plato, Whedbee, and others, we may learn about ghostwriting in a free society.

Plagiarism as deceitful communication impacts everyone in a bigger context. Plagiarism, as well as its

discovery and consequences, can have a negative impact on an organization's performance. A leader's

job to the organisation and its stakeholders is to adapt and then focus on fixing problems.overcoming

obstacles and promoting a return to normalcy (Deitchman, 2013). Good decisions are mad.This really

is true in both these and everyday circumstances. Leaders are compensated for recognising and

responding to challenges in order to protect the organization's image. The way a company's

management respond to a crisis like this might be the difference between survival and doom (Cader &

Leatherman, 2011).Organizational leaders are increasingly being asked to successfully deal with the

difficulty of employee plagiarism, whether it is ignored or acknowledged. The opinions of community

stakeholders and how they see the company dealing with unethical activity on the part of employees

are reflected in the obligation of organisational leaders to handle plagiarism. Failure to recognise and

eliminate plagiarism can harm a company's public image and lead to long-term financial and

profitability declines, despite the best efforts of marketing and public relations. Furthermore, the

ethical consequences should worry a culture and community in which deception is seen as realistic

and unproblematic at best, and punishments are minimal and rarely implemented (S. Stern &

Lemmens, 2011).
 1) Whedbee and the Ongoing Discussion of How Plagiarism Is Defined

Plagiarism is the phrase used to describe literary theft (Whedbee, 2008). Plagiarism is on the

rise in disciplines other than writing, including medicine, science, engineering, and fiction (Stretton,

2014). Authors such as Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen E. Ambrose, and former Vice President Joe

Biden have all written in this style, which appears to be on the increase. The most serious crime is

deception rather than theft. The moral harm caused by plagiarism on self, offended party, intended

audience, and community as a whole is the moral harm caused by hurting self and others' reputations,

insulting others' intelligence, and affecting all parties' integrity (A. M. Stern, Casadevall, Steen, &

Fang, 2014).Plagiarism may be defined in three ways, according to Whedbee (2008): copying a

complete body of work, copying pieces of a body of work, and paraphrasing another's work without

due reference. Students' wholesale cut-and-paste methods, presidential addresses, ghostwriters, time

restrictions, audience expectations, and the question of true knowledge attribution are all examples of

these categories (Bassendowski & Salgado, 2005; Kiehl, 2006; Zheng & Cheng, 2015). The example

of Kaavya Viswanathan was utilised by Whedbee (2008) as a strong jumping-off point for a

discussion on plagiarism, its moral and ethical implications, and impacts.Viswanathan, a 19-year-old

up-and-comer, had written a novel that was found to be primarily based on the work of author Megan

McCafferty. Furthermore, the author has gone into great length on these ethical problems, expanding

the topic beyond the typical plagiarist-originating-author viewpoint to include readers in an analysis

of the community as a third-party participant and victim. Some fail to give a true picture of what

plagiarism entails, instead relying on a broad definition of plagiarism as the stealing of someone else's

work.
 2) Ghostwriting

Writing in another's name for publishing under that person's name is known as ghostwriting

(Landers, 2008). It is more generally recognised and utilised by speech writers for presidents and

political leaders, especially when big governmental policies are presented to the public, such as when

major legislation is approved or a large legislative measure is signed. Furthermore, political leaders

have hired ghostwriters to create speeches following important public events such as natural

catastrophes or war declarations. While the intention is to offer the most clear presentation of a

leader's thinking, others argue that it has instead led to a reliance on others to convey essential points

that should be explained by leaders (Landers, 2008).

Ghostwriting and speeches are becoming less common. According to Landers (2008) of the

Wall Street Journal, ghostwriting for presidential speeches and books has been a long-standing and

well acknowledged practise. Although American presidents have kept their speechwriters hidden from

the public and the media, it appears that ghostwriting is frequent and ethical. The writer stated that the

use of ghostwriters has evolved beyond speeches to policy-making, based on anecdotal evidence and

history texts. This is troublesome at best and frightening at worst since people who are not held

accountable for their activities have undue influence on critical choices.

Furthermore, ghostwriting has made inroads into the medical and scientific fields; in some

cases, the contribution is limited to ensuring that a manuscript is ready for publication in terms of

grammar, punctuation, and other formatting issues (Das & Das, 2014; S. Stern & Lemmens, 2011;

Stretton, 2014). Roberts (2009) reports that some well-known publications are taking the uncommon

step of educating their communities about the hazards of unethical ghostwriting. Ghostwriters are

common in the authoring of research publications for peer-reviewed journals, according to Mathews

(2005). On the surface, this may not appear to be a problem, but pharmaceutical corporations are

using ghostwriters as part of a marketing push for their drugs. Riley and Brown (1996) noted in a
footnote to the discussion of the data that undergraduate respondents were uniform in their ethical

standards of ghostwriting when it came to themselves. The respondents stated that they had no plans

to hire ghostwriters for their own writing and had never done so before. However, it should be noted

that ghostwriting for students might lead to plagiarism. Observers have a number of issues about the

ethics of ghostwriting.

3) Ethical Implications for All Organizations

After World War II, traditional leadership and management paradigms presuppose uniform

workplaces and organisational norms, which may or may not be true today. Leaders in today's

multicultural organisations must now operate in an environment where efficiency and effectiveness

criteria are not universally embraced. Businesses must embrace a consistent set of ethical and integrity

standards, as well as communicate them to workers and other stakeholders (Bishop, 2013). (Resick,

Hargis, Shao, & Dust, 2013). Character is described as a consistent pattern of behaviour and actions

regardless of the circumstances (Johannesen et al., 2008). Much ethical communication, according to

Johannesen et al. (2008), is situational and tailored to roles, conventions, degrees of urgency and

awareness, as well as the communicator's and audience's goals and objectives. While the speaker's

penchant for self-justification makes situational ethics problematic, most, if not all, individuals make

this option at some time (Johannesen et al., 2008).

Conclusions

Because they feel that plagiarism is frequently merely a symptom of a bigger problem with

writing, the authors of this article work with PhD students to identify problems in their writing.

Students that are motivated to learn might adapt by cultivating their own academic voice and writing

in their own words. Despite the aid offered, a small percentage of children are disinterested in

learning to write and will just copy and paste the writings of others. Their academic achievement will

be determined by how they deal with their personal flaws of plagiarising others' words. The majority

of these students do not finish their PhD programmes.

References

Deitchman, S. (2013). Enhancing crisis leadership in public health emergencies. Disaster Medicine

and Public Health Preparedness, 7, 534–540. doi:10.1017/dmp.2013.81

Landers, R. K. (2008, April 12). Books: Presidential words; in a speechifying season, a look at how

the writer’s job has changed. Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), p. W8. Retrieved from

http://online.wsj.com/

Resick, C. J., Hargis, M. B., Shao, P., & Dust, S. B. (2013). Ethical leadership, moral equity

judgments, and discretionary workplace behavior. Human Relations, 66, 951–972.

doi:10.1177/0018726713481633