The Plague of Plagiarism in Universities

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It’s nothing like it was back in the day, students aren’t subjected to hunt high and low through the towering library shelves to find the perfect book for their project, only to then rummage from page to page to find the subject they want to write upon…

In the early 2000’s, the copy and paste era arrived, which remains a curse in disguise to university students around the world. Up until now, most students don’t consider copy and paste as an issue and are oblivious to the extent of the punishment plagiarism can impose on them; yet teachers continue to fail to teach them the law.

On the 10^th of march 2008, a student from central Connecticut state university named Christina Duquette was taught the law tooth and nail when she was charged with a fee of over $25,000 for copying a piece of text from a classmate. Click here to read more on Christina’s story.

Since this time, a few universities, such as The University of Oxford have made the minimal effort of advising their students to read about plagiarism on their website as well as providing them with the option to take part in an online course . But, with “50,000 students caught cheating in the last 3 years”,[ 3 ] the argument still stands that universities need to make more of a direct approach to educate the pupils on the consequences the academic dishonesty can create.

Certainly everyone has been there: the feeling of sheer panic while being behind schedule to hand in a paper, accompanied by the urge to copy a schoolmate’s work or buy a paper/article off of the internet. Nonetheless, I can assure you that the short term consequences of handing a paper in late are minuet in comparison to the long term repercussion of plagiarizing; it is not at all a solution. After all, what would you rather, a potential debt of over $25,000 or a deduction of a few marks on your grade?

In conclusion, there is one bit of advice on plagiarism that could potentially change your future for the better: avoid it at any costs.