Universities and other educational institutes considerindividual, honest work to be extremely important when it comes to academics;this directly relates to a student’s work ethic and their individual integrityas well. It is an unfortunate reality that some students may plagiarize theirwork either intentionally or unintentionally. According to the MemorialUniversity Calendar, Plagiarism is defined as “the act of presenting the ideasor works of another as one’s own. This applies to all material such as essays,laboratory assignments, laboratory reports, work term reports, design projects,seminar presentations, statistical data, computer programs, research resultsand theses”.
(https://www.mun.ca/regoff/calendar/sectionNo=REGS-0748).Plagiarism, in other words, is an individual takingsomeone else’s’ work and intentionally stating it as their own, orunintentionally misrepresenting the source it was obtained from. Plagiarismdoes not only exist in academics, and can exist in work places, in art, music,etc. It is important in the research community as researchers rely heavily onthe studies conducted by many researchers.
If any information was obtained froman outside source, whether it was used “word for word” or not, the source forthis idea must be stated and credit must be given to the original author(s). Plagiarism affects not only the individual who did notreceive credit, it also impacts the individual who plagiarized. With respectsto not receiving credit, researchers spend extreme amounts of time dedicatingthemselves to their work. Of course they would like this work to benefitsomeone else’s research, however credit must be given where credit is due. Ifanyone can take someone’s hard work and say it is their own, this may decreasethe incentive for people to strive to do research. In addition to this, manyessential skills are obtained whilst completing a degree.
Whether it be skillsin research, laboratory, writing, the list goes on. If an individual were tosimply copy someone else’s work, they would miss the opportunity to developthese skills as they are learned through hard work and dedication and cannotsimply be “transcribed”.
