“Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age” Summary
There is continued concern that in this digital age, students are becoming more prone to plagiarism. In most instances, the students do not seem to take the act of lifting information from another source as a serious academic/authorship crime. Trip Gabriel, in The New York Times, reports that the internet age has created loopholes for disregarding authorship issues such as copyright and intellectual property.
This is mainly due to the easiness of access to information as facilitated by digital technology. With the current wave of students having been brought up in the age of digital technology, which somewhat eases copying and pasting, most of them find themselves falling culprit of plagiarism. There is a common misnomer among the current generation of students that the voluminous information on the internet is available for anyone without the need to credit its authorship.
Gabriel further reports that a significant number of college students plagiarize to some extent and a fewer number of students are convinced that copying from the internet is unacceptable, according to surveys. The blur in plagiarism in the digital era students also reflects from the finding that most students have a willingness to be authentic. However, the same batch of students does not seem to feel obliged to stand out as unique and authentic.
Despite the view that the current generation of students is somewhat neglecting the seriousness of plagiarism, it is still viewed that originality must be emphasized and not to allow digital technology to violate principles of authorship. Instead, students need to develop a culture of writing with originality as early as during their high school years. In general, the easiness of access to information as enabled by digital technology should not be used as an excuse for plagiarizing- after all, most students attest to plagiarizing with an intention.
“Using Facebook can ‘lower exam results by up to 20%’” Summary
Nic Fleming reports, in Mail Online, that reading while using Facebook, a social networking site, lowers academic performance. It is important to note that the student does not have to be reading and using Facebook simultaneously for grades to lower. Instead, even the act of reading while a social networking site is running in the background is bound to lower academic performance. It is saddening that the performance goes down by a significant 20 percent compared to those who do not use social networking sites while reading. These findings are based on research conducted by psychologists at an American University.
It is explained that better performance of non-users of social networking sites while reading is attributable to more time devoted to studying after class hours. It is however contradicting that most users of Facebook were of the view that the use of Facebook did not affect their academic performance while only a quarter felt that Facebook interrupted their studies. Overall, the reporting of this study affirms that multitasking, especially in the digital/virtual world, hurts task performance.
Works Cited
Fleming, Nic. using Facebook can ‘lower exam results by up to 20%’. Mail Online. 2010.
Gabriel, Trip. Plagiarism lines blur for students in digital age. The New York Times, 2010.