Wow! No answers to this question. Is it too obvious or too big?

Dear David,

I happen to see your question too late. My personal opinion on this is-

It depends on students analytical, logical, comprehension and writing abilities. If they lack in clear thinking they would try to build their writing with some aid and easiest aid is ready material in the form of books, articles and some others work. If they have good writing abilities and if they are encouraged to present their views, work in their own words they would not plagiarize. As you pointed out plagiarism could be too obvious, where time, rewards, stigma, inability to express in writing involves. I mean if some one wants the task completed well ahead of schedule, surly he will trespass thinking with plagiarism. If some one is asked to write of his own without any set goal or reward and if the subject given requires through thinking, he would attempt plagiarism. If some one is behind achieving too large with limited personal potential or if some one is incapable of completing the task of clear acceptable writing then they have no choice than to plagiarize.

I am not against any of the human's obvious nature, neither I support the act of plagiarism, above explanation is just in response to your question.

Regard's

Rajesh Patil

Thanks Rajesh. It makes sense.

Why do students plagiarise?

Think the main reasons are greedy & lazy.  Greedy because some students want to earn / own something but don't want to cite / recognize the source or give credit to the original owner.  They are also lazy because after citing other authors' works, they don't want to summarize & rewrite or rephrase - instead they just copy & paste.

Han Ping Fung you said "greedy and lazy". I like the way you characterise this, which, if I understand correctly, can be summarised as: they want to produce something without putting the work in.

I see your point and am sure this applies to some plagiarising students but I think there are also other causes revolving around lack of understanding.

In my opinion:

I think that students fall into plagiarism because they have not informed by their teachers or supervisors, in addition they should teach them how a scientist can write in original way or how to develop his own writing style by Using references, I think the students should be informed and well taught to minimize the phenomenon of plagiarism.

Thank you...

Becuase not all student have skill for writing research or paper.so, they do that

I think it is a matter of ethics, someone like to steal someone else.

I don't believe that the majority of students plagiarise deliberately.  The most common reason is that many lack the skills to summarise and write in their own words. This is especially true of students who not studying in their home language. This makes reviewing and article very difficult and then extracting the main conclusions and huge task.  

Judging by my personal teaching experience, the reasons for plagiarism are not of the same nature. Some of them are psychologically determined, some take root in the culture, some are purely academic. The latter have always given me much concern: have we done everything to create an educational environment that will reject cheating and plagiarism? Have we been systematic about that? Can we consider ourselves good role models for students? Have we equipped them with enough knowledge on true goals of education?

Sorry, but I seem to have more questions than answers...

Olga,

Thanks for your input. Generating more questions than answers seems to be a fairly common phenomenon when considering reasons for plagiarism. I feel if we understood why our students do it we would be closer to finding ways to help them not do it. But the reason seem elusive or, at least, very complicated.

Dear David,

I think plagiarism is a complicated phenomenon. Based on my observation on EFL learners, among those who plagiaize, some are lazy, but most of them have low proficiency. I'm working on a project to examine roles of plagiarism on writing development. Hope to have more insights to share with you in the future.

Regards,

Angkanz

Angkana,

You are right, of course, it is complicated. And I agree that with many EFL learners low proficiency may be a cause. However, it is my experience that even high proficiency EFL writers can be tempted. We also have the picture coming out of contexts like the US and UK showing high levels of plagiarism among native-speaker writers, although being native speakers of English does not make them native speakers of academic English.

Your project sounds interesting. I'm sure all of us in the EFL community look forward to seeing your results.

Selma,

I'm sure you are right that there are multiple, and often overlapping, reasons. Timing must have an impact on students' ability to do their best work and teachers need to take that into account in setting assignments (I would have thought by now that teachers would have got that). But students still need to understand that there is a big gap between producing a poorly written assignment because time is short, and cheating. It is such a big risk that is just not worth taking.

student don't understand the criteria of research writings, they are not aware copyright rule, they have not enough time to complete assignments within time , language barrier, high school level bad habits are carry forwarded , lack of guidance from teachers towards how avoid plagiarism, high grade expectations and most important not aware regarding that the copying from others writings is illegal ...

Surendra,

Thanks for your list. I think they are all things whihc may have featured as causes at different times and in different places. I would be reluctant to use that list now in a general sense to encompass all students in every context because in many places a lot of work is going on to inform students and to help them understand how to avoid plagiarism. Still, I'm sure there is more to be done.

Simply, they don't familiar with copywrite laws and therefore they tend to copy sentences and contents easily. In addition, they don't learn paraphrasing techniques during their college or university years. In conclusion, scholars should learn students crucial skills in order to avoid plagiarism.

Ali,

You could be right that plagiarism may be encouraged by a lack of understanding of copyright law. But I want to draw a distinction between the two. Copyright, as you rightly indicate, is a legal issue and is based on the concept of making sure no one benefits unfairly from another's work (e.g. by illegally copying a CD or book, either for sale or to avoid paying for it). Plagiarism is an academic issue rather than a legal one and is based on the concept of not pretending to have created another's work. Copyright is essentially about money whereas plagiarism is about academic honesty (and therefore ethics and reputation).

But, having said that, I see where you are going because both concern benefiting unfairly from another's work. So it could be that those who have grown up in an environment where copyright is not taken seriously might easily extend that attitude to academic work and thus commit plagiarism.

It would be fascinating to research the correlation between copyright infringement and incidence of plagiarism. However, I can see all kinds of problems in trying to collect the data for that!