Plagiarism: The Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V boom

According to an article entitled "Plagiarism: The Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V boom," plagiarism has as of late, especially since the introduction of the Internet, been rife. So much that lecturers have to resort to making their students use a program called Turnitin in order to check for plagiarism. However, it seems that not only students can fall prey to plagiarism, but ministers as well. A German minister quit his job after it was found out that he had plagiarized another person's work. Plagiarism is, as defined by Carroll (Bennett, Benrendt & Boothby 2011, p. 29), using the work of other's for one's own benefit, whether unintentionally or intentionally.

A similar incident that happened was one where an ESPN anchor plagiarized the work of a newspaper journalist. The ESPN anchor, Will Selva, used Sports writer, Kevin Ding's, work for his report on a show called "Highway Express" (CNN Wire Staff 2010). Ding was surprised to find that when he turned on the television, he heard exactly what he had written two days back come back to him, right out of Selva's mouth (CNN Wire Staff 2010). Instead of paraphrasing Ding's work, Selva had copied it word for word, so much that it was easy to tell that he was plagiarizing. Another similar incident is one between two singers. Gordon Jenkins claimed that Johnny Cash had plagiarized his work from his album "Concept Dreams" (The Australian 2010). It may have taken Jenkins years to sue Cash, but the court settlement was about the hundred thousand dollar mark (The Australian 2010).

According to Ouden and Wijk (2011), one of the reasons why students plagiarize is because they do not understand that this is wrong. These students have grown up in an environment where illegal downloading and watching clips of their favourite television shows on websites such as YouTube is the norm (Ouden & Mijk 2011). So, once they enter college or university, the concept of crediting another person for their work can be very confusing to them (Ouden & Mijk 2011).

Plagiarism is a very serious offense that can cause one to lose their job, fail a paper, get sued for and so much more. This sickness should be cured by receiving sufficient knowledge as to what counts as plagiarism and understanding the consequences should one ever consider to plagiarize another person's work.

References:

1. Bennett, KK, Behrendt, LS & Boothby, JL 2011, 'Instructor Perceptions of Plagiarism : Are We Finding Common Ground?' Teaching of Psychology, vol. 38, no. 1, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://top.sagepub.com.ezproxy.taylors.edu.my/content/38/1/29.full.pdf+html>.
2. CNN Wire Staff 2010, 'ESPN anchor apologizes for stealing newspaper writer's words,' CNN 30 December, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/30/espn.plagiarism/index.html?iref=allsearch>.
3. The Australian 2010, 'Song plagiarism cases,' The Australian 4 February, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/gallery-e6frg6n6-1225826759719?page=2>.
4. Ouden, HD & Wijk, CV 2011, 'Plagiarism: Punish or Prevent? Some Experiences With Academic Copycatting in the Netherlands,' Business Communication Quarterly, vol. 74, no. 2, viewed 12 June 2011, <http://bcq.sagepub.com.ezproxy.taylors.edu.my/content/74/2/196.full.pdf+html>.