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PLAGIARISM

Author: Tukimin bin Sansuwito

Lecturer in Faculty of Nursing, Lincoln University College Malaysia.
Email address: tukimin@lincoln.edu.my

Introduction

The term plagiarism was recognized since early 17th century and it has become current

concerns as unethical behavior that affects academic and professional integrity

(Aronson, J.,K. 2007). It is not only student monopolized but includes academic staff.

The main contributing factor is misunderstanding, misperception, lack of awareness,

work load stress, poor in synthesis academic writing and intellectual laziness (White,

SM. 2011). The research finding has described that plagiarism is most common

amongst first year students and progressively decrease on higher semester. Szabo &

Underwood in Owens, C., and White, V., A. (2013) has found that more than 50 %

undergraduate students plagiaries from internet. The evidence also has shown that

awareness of student to plagiarism just 30% students agree that plagiarism is a

problem (Ford, P.J., and Huges, C. 2011) . Therefore, I feel it is important to define

plagiarism clearly to improve understanding, perception and self-awareness especially

among first year student.

Definition of Plagiarism

Online version of British World English Dictionary (Stevenson, A. 2012) defined

plagiarism ‘as the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off

as one’s own’. Originally, the term plagiarism is from Latin word plagiarius which

means is kidnapper and it is derived from Greek word plagium meaning kidnapping.

Therefore, general meaning of plagiarism term is a noun refers to people who copies

other people’s work or ideas and claim them as their work. Specifically, Concise

Oxford Thesaurus Dictionary has complemented the definition of plagiarism as activity

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infringement of copy right includes copy, piracy, theft, stealing, informal cribbing and

claiming of them (Howker, S. 2007). Mosby Dental dictionary defines it as an

appropriation of the work, ideas, or words of another without proper acknowledgment

(Christensen, K. 2012). This definition indicates that plagiarism occurred as result from

failure to understand how to acknowledge scientific wealth. In detail Ford, P.,J. and

Huges, C. (2011) declared that plagiarism as an academic integrity violation includes

recycling sentence (White, SM. 2011), republish, resubmit (Aronson, JK. 2007), reuse

material, new paper containing text from previous paper and omitting citation (Stefano,

T. 2013).

Based on several definition of plagiarism above, I would like to define that plagiarism is

an unethical scientific behavior in the form of theft of intellectual properties and

infringement of copy right includes taking someone work or ideas, copy, piracy,

stealing, cribbing, recycle sentence, republish, resubmit, reuse material either

intentional or unintentionally without proper acknowledgement and claim them as own.

Why it is important that students understand plagiarism

Student must understand clearly the definition of plagiarism above before starting to do

an assignment because it is a main gate to realize good understanding, perception, self

awareness of student in avoiding plagiarism and furthermore to maintain academic

integrity. Academic integrity refers to honesty and transparency in which knowledge is

acquired Hayes, N. and Lucas, D. (2005) . This means that enforcement of academy

integrity necessitate student availability to establish high level of scientific written,

trustworthy and ethical in writing an assignment. Student must be aware that plagiarism

is a serious deviant behavior in scientific culture, therefore it is important to avoid it

because plagiarism is an academic dishonesty, a crime in copy right law thus breaking

academic norm.

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Plagiarism is an academic dishonesty, violates academic regulation and could be

sanctioned as an academic misconduct. Accordingly Wilfred, F. (2013), pointed out that

plagiarism as a deadly sin in academic life and suggests that student must be fair and

transparent in authorship, citation and referencing. Furthermore, Neil, B.,C. (2010) had

suggested that manuscripts for student includes assignment paper, research and

publication must be met to the scientific ethical, accuracy, authorship and originality

criteria to establish good academic integrity.

Plagiarism is a violation of intellectual properties which can be sued by the copyrights

law, could be charged with specific punishment or fines and it is an infringement of

copy right in written and publication ethic. This indicates that plagiarism harm others

and undermine the education system. Therefore, student who plagiarists have tends to

be potential miscreant of scientific community and they could be charged as unlawful

conduct. On the other hand, student will also be disadvantaged when taking other

people’s work because it retards learning process and student never develops.

Accordingly, Corporation of Malaysian Intellectual properties declare that copy other’s

work, rent and lend without particular consent or proper acknowledgement could be

charged by legal action under (Act A994:s.2) Law of Malaysia ACT. 332 (2002).

Plagiarism is an unethical behavior (Stefano, T. 2013) which is not aligned with the

culture norms in our society and contrary with the moral values. There are three main

type of norm in our society which includes social norm, religious norm and family norm.

The norm is defined as a usual, belief and standard or pattern of especially social

behavior of a community (Oxford dictionary, 2012). These mean that norms refer to

good behavior which contributes to benefit of social interaction. Furthermore,

plagiarism is disadvantaged behavior that is harmful to own self, other people and

profession because plagiarist makes a person lazy affect capability, unhealthy culture.

Furthermore it retards self and professional development.

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REFERENCES

Aronson, JK. (2007) Plagiarism – Please Don’t Copy. British Journal of Clinical
Pharmachology. Blackwell Publishing 64(4), pp. 403 – 405.

Christensen, K. (2012) Mosby’s Dental Dictionary. 2 nd Edition. United State: Elsevier.

Inc.

Ford, P.,J. and Huges, C. (2011) Academic Integrity and Plagiarism: Perception and
Experience of Staff and Students in a School of Dentistry: A Situational Analysis of
Staff and Student Perspectives. Europian Journal of Dental Education. 16,180 – 186.

Hayes, N. and Lucas, D. (2005) Cultural Values, Plagiarism, and Fairness: When
Plagiarism Gets in The Way of Learning. Ethic and Behavior Journal, 15(3), pp.213-
231.

Howker, S. (2007) Concise Oxford Thesaurus: The World’s Most Trusted Dictionaries.
3rd Edition. United State: Oxford University Press.

Laws of Malaysia (2006) Intelectual Property Corporation of Malaysia Act 2002.

Publish by The Commisioner of Law Revision, in Collaboration with Malaysian of
National Publisher Bhd.

Neil, B.C. (2010) How to address Publication Ethics. International Journal of Urology,
17.pp2.

Owens, C., and White, V., A. (2013) A 5 Year Systematic Strategy to Reduce
Plagiarism Among First–Year Psychology University Students. Australian Journal of
Psychology. 65, pp.14-21.

Oxford Dictionary (2012) Oxford University Press Inc. Available at

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/norm?q=norm

Stefano, T. (2013). Scientific Ethics. Journal of Applied Polymer Science. Wiley Online
Library. DOI :10.1002/APP 38427.

Stevenson, A., (2012) Oxford Dictionary of English. 3th Ed. United Kingdom: Oxford
University Press.

White, SM. (2011) Self Plagiarism. Journal of the Association of Anaesthetist of Great
Britain and Ireland, 66, pp. 220–231.

Wilfred, F. (2013) The Seven Sins in Academic Behavior in the Natural Science, Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology, Ed. 2013, 52, pp.118-112.