Plagiarism is a crime!

Ever found yourself knowing or unknowingly copying and using content from published material online or off the web?  While it is not bad to use previously documented material, it is a grave offence to use somebody else’s work (copied or paraphrased) without crediting the owner. This is what plagiarism is all about. It is understandable that it might be difficult to generate new content as an author/writer. Which is why it is important that we properly credit anything that is not originally our own piece of work – including images downloaded online. 

I recently reviewed a submission where the author had copied everything from an existing blog. How did I know the work was all copied? Well, the ability to read and determine whether content is genuine or not is a skill that is nurtured over time. Not to say that I am skillful, but to a large extent I have come to learn how to distinguish genuine literature from plagiary. I owe this growing skill to my graduate school experience at the University Of Auckland where I had to take a non-graded but compulsory course called Academic Integrity course. 

The university required all students to undertake Academic Intergrity course within the first months or semester of admission.  This was aimed at ensuring that all students exercised the institution’s integrity value and zero tolerance to academic theft. The use of content without proper citation was prohibited. Students were also required to understand the creative commons licenses and know when/how best to use any material they access within the university library or other approved sources in pursuit of their academic work. Most of my graded courses entailed a lot of researching and occasional writing of papers where it was deemed that unless novel work, most of the content a student presents have an original source; proper referencing of such sources is paramount. Looking back in time, I appreciate the University of Auckland for inculcating in me a high level of academic integrity. I learnt how to quickly read through numerous articles, papers and books within a short time and decipher what was most useful to my work. This has nurtured my ability to trace whenever literature is genuine or otherwise. I am certainly not an expert in this area but is determined to improve as I read wider over time and master the art to easily link a writing style to a specific author. 

Plagiarism highly reduces your credibility as a person or institution. There have been cases where some political leaders were highly criticized or lost proportional respect because they gave speeches that were not of their original creation. In an academic setting, you may end up facing disciplinary actions including expulsion depending on the school’s code of ethics. As a researcher, peers lose confidence in your work if found to be ingenuine in which case your papers may not be published on peer-reviewed journals. Commercially, you may face a lawsuit for fraudulent use of content which could turn ugly. 

Beware that ignorance is no longer an excuse for committing crimes, plagiarism being one of those.  For starters, the internet provides a haven of resource materials and tools that you can use to help you learn and determine when your work is plagiarized or not. There are also multiple online platforms where you can run plagiarism checks on your works or submissions due for review. Don’t be worked up in case the check returns traces of ingenuity (some institutions have a level of plagiarism considered as acceptable – usually within 15% or 20% range). The world is alive to the fact that we do not need to re-invent the wheel.