Amanda Lange- Plagiarism and the Internet

"Plagiarism and the Internet"

This article illustrates that with the increasing use of the Internet along with the growth and advancement of technology, plagiarism in schools appears to positively correlate with that increasing as well. In other words, the more technologically advanced students become, the more the easier it becomes for students to plagiarize another person's work. For instance, the article touches upon how easy it is for a student to simply copy words, sentences, and/or whole paragraphs from an online source and paste it directly into their own paper they are typing. This results in completed papers and assignments with minimal effort and thus minimal learning. Additionally, as other students and people in general become more technologically advanced, the creation of websites and web links where entire essays can be downloaded sometimes for a small fee but mostly for no coast at all increase plagiarism as students can now take entire essays and use them as their own. The ethical issues arise as the student is not putting their own efforts and originality into their work and “stealing” another person’s original hard work. Legally, plagiarism is considered a crime and taken very seriously as it is against the law. With the availability of the Internet and technologies such as “copy-and-paste” features, plagiarism seems to be highly increasing among students as it provides an “easy way out” to getting done assignments and papers completed.
The article also discusses how the Internet can be used to counteract these crimes and “combat” plagiarism through different website technologies. Many teachers are now using Internet plagiarism prevention sites, such as “turnitin.com.” Teachers have their students submit their assignments in these web pages and through these sites, the papers are reviewed, searched, and compared to numerous online sources finding and displaying any similarities which can than be further reviewed for plagiarism. Overall, while there are ways to counteract classroom plagiarism using technology, for the most part, the increase of technology has increased student plagiarism which is both ethically and legally an issue.

source: http://www.k12academics.com/education-assessment-evaluation/plagiarism/plagiarism-internet (2004-2009)