Beware of Internet plagiarism

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta, vmahmud@yahoo.com

As 2004 begins, so continues the school year. As is common for most educational institutions, students will be given assignments, essays and term papers to ensure that they have adequately learned the various methods and techniques taught during the year.

However, as the Internet becomes more common in our lives, and with access to global information just a few clicks away, plagiarism is becoming a major issue in the academic world.

Plagiarism, according to Dictionary.com, is defined as the copying of someone else's work and submitting it as their own. This includes the use of another person's ideas, quotations and research without proper reference.

It's been reported that a number of students at the secondary, undergraduate and even graduate level of study worldwide have been found committing acts of intellectual property theft.

These students would source materials from the World Wide Web, in some cases complete compositions, and hand it in to their teachers for credit.

If caught, the penalty can be severe. Some schools consider this as a form of cheating punishable by expulsion. And should you get away with it, there is always the chance your deception could be discovered in the future, resulting in not only the shame of being labeled a cheat, but also the possibility of having your diploma or certificate revoked by the victimized institution.

Plagiarism does not only affect schools alone. Newspaper reporters, writers and even singers have been charged with stealing other people's work. There have been countless numbers of websites on the Internet that have been copied, code by code, design by design.

This form of intellectual property theft is now pretty easy to commit since all one has to do is simply download the webpage, make alterations and then submit it as your own.

Are there any remedies for plagiarism? There is technology available for schools to see if any paper submitted is in fact available online. There are scores of websites (called "Internet paper mills") that offer, for a price, term papers, essays and theses to students for "research".

Services like Turn It In (www.turnitin.com) can compare submitted student compositions against a massive database of term papers on the Internet to see if the paper, topic or even a paragraph were improperly referenced.

However, its use can be rather controversial.

It was recently reported that a McGill University student challenged his course instructor against the mandatory use of such "plagiarism detectors".

Users of the popular geek website Slashdot, who are mostly college students/graduates, computer professionals and other learned individuals, are divided about this use of technology.

On one hand, some complain about the high incidence of plagiarism they themselves see in academia and applaud the efficient use of the Internet against lazy students taking credit for someone else's work.

On the other hand, some were equally unhappy with the "guilty until proven innocent" atmosphere in schools nowadays regarding assignment submissions, and of teachers outsourcing their scholarly duty of reviewing papers to for-profit businesses.

Despite the differing views, plagiarism is still akin to stealing. However, we should not completely hand over the responsibility of teaching to machines. Teachers and parents should make sure that their little scholars are aware of the penalties (both morally and academically) of cheating and plagiarism.

They should also teach them the proper methods of referencing sources.

For students who aspire to become professionals, academics or even artists, doing assignments properly will instill a sense of accomplishment and motivation for future successes. The "easy way" could instead foster complacency and premature satisfaction, which in the end would do nothing for their potential development.

Like the Encyclopedia Britannica before it, the Internet is a repository of knowledge that can be used and shared throughout the world. The Net is larger and easier to search, providing a multitude of answers to a simple question.

But we should remember that these are simply tools for education and not a shortcut to a diploma.

Because in the end, plagiarism affects all of us. Should we allow this practice to continue to grow, the body of knowledge that has been developed since the days of Copernicus will become stagnant and die as mankind faces new challenges, contests and objectives.

Without critical thought and new ideas, we may never find the solutions to future questions.