Introduction
Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them as one’s own without proper acknowledge the original author. During the 18th century, copying or imitation of artistic work or expression was not considered to be a moral offense or something unethical. It was encouraged and highly regarded as being extremely close to the masters’ work. This was to discourage unnecessary inventions during the roman movement (Morgan & Renolds, 1997).
In the late 18th century, there was a wave of artistic inspirations, and artists started selling their work. It became necessary for people to do individual creative work, especially in academia and journalistic circles. It is a moral offence or an academic dishonesty to try to pass off plagiarized material as one’s own.
It is a very serious offence with severe consequences. Imitation and copying are still tolerated by artists. It is, therefore, advised that if one borrows or replicates another person’s material, he/she should give citations of the work. In academic institutions, plagiarism is rampant among the students. This may be attributed to the pressure to excel and strict deadlines to complete projects.
Ethical point of view on plagiarism
It is an academic fraud; this amount of dishonesty makes many institutions of learning treat plagiarism with a lot of seriousness. At high school level, some of the consequences are suspensions and failing some grades containing the copied work. In higher levels of learning, students are expelled, fail some courses and have their degrees revoked. Researchers plagiarizing other works are discredited and terminated of employment (Ashworth et al., 1997).
The purpose of education is to make students that can reason individually produce solutions to today’s life issues. When a student goes through college without copying people’s material and repeating others ideas, without attempts of being original and creative, it is an injustice to those who use a lot of resources to educate themselves. When such a lazy student is done with college, he/she cannot be creative at his work place (Strandler, 2000).
In a civilized society, one must respect other people’s property, whether intellectual property or physical property. Through plagiarism ,a student commits theft, which is unethical according to human’s standards. The educated people in these institutions of higher learning get licenses or certifications to perform various duties in society.
These licenses are awarded according to work done and evaluated. When a student plagiarizes research finding, project papers and thesis material they cannot be trusted to uphold ethical standards as doctors, lawyers, pilot or any other profession. This makes them unqualified, so it is not ethical for them to provide those services.
Effects of plagiarism
Plagiarism whether it is done intentionally or not ruins professional and academic integrity. Students can be expelled, their degrees will be held for a certain period of time or revoked (Hansen, 2003). Plagiarism destroys the relationships in the institutions. The relationship of trust of students by the teachers is destroyed making the teacher play the role of a detective for all the works submitted by the students.
The students that plagiarize are hated by those who do not plagiarize. This is because if they have not been caught yet, they get good grades that they have not worked hard for. It also destroys motivation, especially if the student is expelled and has to repeat courses. A person who plagiarizes other hard work does not have respect for people or the process of the work itself.
Effects of Plagiarism on the degree earned, and in the places of work
Over time, there have been so many incidences of students caught plagiarizing in universities that have had their degrees withheld for a certain period of time. In such cases, students work is found to have been plagiarized, years after the attainment of the degree/ certification, the institutions can revoke it.
It happens in the case of a physician whose license was revoked 10 years after he graduated in Massachusetts. Apart from the loss of self-esteem and lack of credibility among his colleagues and the rest of the community, this affects his family too. He may have plagiarized unintentionally, but he is stripped of his credentials and embarrassed in society.
This plagiarism can devalue one’s degree as soon as an incident of inquiry starts. An employer as well as an employee can terminate him/her as he/she is no longer qualified as it was previously stated in his/her degree. This also shows that that person is of questionable moral values, and it would not look good on the companies profile having such an employee there.
If a chief executive officer of a company plagiarizes his/her papers in college and got away, it will do the same thing in the business, corporate plagiarism of ideas and other frauds. To avoid plagiarism, it always gives credit to a person (Adams, 2002).
References
Adams, T.J. (2002). Plagiarism in the Workplace. Web.
Ashworth, P., Bannister, P., & Thorne, P. (1997).Guilty in whose eyes/university students’ perception of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment. Studies in higher Education. Michigan: Claremont Graduate School.
Hansen, B. (2003). Combating plagiarism. Web.
Morgan, W.P. & Renolds, G.H. (1997). Appearance of Impropriety. California: Free Press.
Strandler, R.B. (2000). Plagiarism in colleges in USA. University of Alberta Libraries. Web.