Essay zu "plagiarism"

[Nixen]

Hallo zusammen,

ich muss bis morgen einen Essay schreiben und hab das nun auch so weit fertig. Könntet ihr mal darüber schauen und mir ein paar Tipps bzw. Verbesserungen nennen.

Viele Grüße
Jörg


A new year has come, that bring people to set new resolutions about their life. Mostly common are things as to stop smoking, improve diet, drive more considerately, take more care about the family and reduce working stress - but what about plagia-rism, one of the topics, caused a sensation in 2011, that reminds us that plagiarists can be anyone and anywhere. Plagiarism is defined as the “wrongful appropriation”, “imitation” or “purloining and publication” of somebodies intellectual property (Wikipedia). Especially the case of Guttenberg, the former German minister of defensive, attracts a great deal of interest. Headlines in German magazines were overturning. Further cases appear and it seems to be, as there will be a never ending story about plagiarism in Germany. Indeed stealing content in scientific environments seems to be a widespread method underlined by recent analysis, which demonstrates that more than 60% of college students admitted in some form of plagiarism while studying (McCabe, 2005). These results give rise to the conclusion that there is an immense necessity of improvement. Over and above this, the diffusion of the internet increases these tendencies. Despite the negative statistics and although many people express their incomprehension and the damnability of plagiarism, nobody resolves to reduce his own behavior concerning plagiarism. So the question is, why contemporary plagiarism is grown to such a present method nobody feels guilty for. Actual studies give deeper insights in justification processes of plagiarists (Goldstein, 1999, 2002; McKillop, 2002; Moss, 2005). In relation to this, it can be assumed, that plagiarism is a trivial offence in peoples mind, reasoned by actual trends as well as missed intervention measures. Hence plagiarism has to be seen as a logical consequence of contemporary human environment. In sum three aspects can be distinguished enticing people to use plagiarism: Recent technological developments, unmanageable contents without controllability and at least the lack of adequate education. In the following the three thesis mentioned before will be considered more in detail. Therefor I will particularly focus on academic plagiarism.
The computer era is both a blessing and a curse for human being. On the one hand it brings about more comfort and convenience to our life, by making the world more closely. On the other hand the digital developments imply lots of negative impact that for example surface in cyber-crime, or political abuse. Equal to this, the process of plagiarism can be seen from different points of view: What is a pleasure for students, angers the lectures. Considering this, the source of evil is the internet, which has become one of the most essential elements in life influencing our behavior. This implies that things got easier, e.g. shopping, networking, the exchange of data and consequently the finding of information about a variety of topics. So, search engines have grown to very powerful entities, offering people the possibility to get knowledge in a fraction of time compared to previous ages. As a result a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2005) indicates that close to 90% of students ages 12 to 17 use the Internet, with most students and their parents believing the Internet helps them do well in school. A survey by DeBell and Chapman (2001) indicated that 72% of adolescent students use the Internet for schoolwork. Consequently the majority of students own the possibility to find thousands of sources in only a few seconds by using a search engine. So the copy-paste plagiarism has increased dramatically, give rise to a new notation: “The google copy-paste syndrome” (Weber, 2008). This will be exacerbating by establishing structured knowledge bases, such as Wikipedia. So in recent times students do no longer have to search intensively. They just have to enter the topic they are looking for and will get a well-prepared fund of information, ready to take over. In addition many students assume, that if something is offered as openly, as the internet, especially Wikipedia do, the content is some kind of public property, everybody can make use of. Considering this process, technological progression does not happen by chance, but is a product of great demands students have to fulfill, further illustrated in the subsequent paragraph.
Studying today means to meet heavy requirements, such as deliver assign-ments in great quality and a minimum of time under consideration of an unmanageable stock of information. Additionally future employers more often start to search for all-round talents, providing practical experiences combined with theoretical background. That brings about further restriction, by investing more time in practical employments, not to mention the neglect of leisure. In respect to this, students have to improve their way of working and to find about techniques that make them act more effectively. In consequence plagiarism suggests itself. The advantages are obviously: Good students save time and bad ones can fake a good performance, they would never reach on their own. The known fact, that lectures often neither have the chance nor the skills to control scientific assignments for content imitations, intensifies this trend furthermore. Reasons for this can be seen in the nearly unmanageable content the internet offers, nobody can overlook. In order to improve the situation, there are some programs, seemed to be a hopefully light on the sky of scientific work and mental property. Apart from that many programs failed, rather than the users do not own enough time and skills to handle the software. What is more such programs do not even run in every language, not mentioned that students not seldom know how to manipulate their copied content to avoid being trapped. The latter premises plagiarists acting intentionally, what is often inapplicable, caused by a lack of education, discussed in the following paragraph more elaborated.
To realize that a behavior was unlawful, it is necessary, that the inculpated person is aware of doing wrong. In many cases, this awareness is not given, rea-soned by a deficit education of students regarding plagiarism. This nuisance can be declared by a matter of course, which leads lectures to forget to remind their follow-ers considering plagiarism aspects. So, it is not even remarkable, that students com-plete their study without once have been informed about plagiarism. In addition to this, younger people often had another background in using the internet compared to older generations. Often they had been using free proposals, such as music downloads, video streaming or software products. Consequently many students conclude that copying texts of other authors and implement them into the own assignment doesn´t care. What is more they even think if they change a few words, it is no further imitation in it. Perry (2001) explains that confusion between plagiarism and paraphrasing will always exist. He found that some students believe that if you copy from several different sources, and then combine them, it is not actually plagiarism but 'research'. At least in many opinions plagiarism is seen as a mere peccadillo, which probably will never been discovered or if so there will not be a great amerce on it.

[Keswick (Contributor)]

"Bis morgen" und du stellst deine Arbeit erst um 22.24 ins Forum? Tut mir leid, aber das ist zu wenig Vorlaufzeit um dir eine Korrektur zu liefern. Stell deine Arbeit(en) doch das naechste Mal bitte etwas frueher ein, damit wir dir rechtzeitig helfen koennen. Danke!