Plagiarism and the Internet :: Cheating Education Essays Papers

Plagiarism and the Internet A major concern among college students, high school students, professors and teachers is plagiarism. Most students are unaware of what exactly plagiarism is. They all have general ideas, but most donÏ€t know the extent to which it spans. On the other side, teachers and professors are unaware of how to handle the situation. All the technological advances and the World Wide Web make it easier for students to pass off anotherÏ€s work as their own. Plagiarism can be defined as using anotherÏ€s words or ideas as your own without stating the source of information. This not only includes words or ideas, but pictures, graphs, charts, and statistics. The only case where citing is unnecessary is when the fact is common knowledge that can be found in a variety of places and most people know about it. Students who plagiarize from the internet, donÏ€t even consider it really plagiarizing. They feel that since it is not a hard copy of the work that it really isnÏ€t wrong. This goes back to the idea that students today arenÏ€t even sure what to consider plagiarism. With the creation of the World Wide Web, students have the ability to access great amounts of information at a faster speed. Years ago, in order to plagiarize students had to spend hours searching through books to copy information from to write a paper. The internet today contains information on so many topics, that is almost impossible to not find what you are looking for. There are even websites that specialize in providing students with papers. The task of plagiarizing from the internet has become so popular that according to a survey found in Education Week, ≠¥54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the internet≠¤ (≠¥Statistics≠¤ 1). The commonness of plagiarizing has grown so much from past decades that is becoming hard to control. Although, plagiarism has become so easily accomplished, the same can not be said for catching plagiarists. There is just too much information of the World Wide Web, that it makes it almost impossible for plagiarists to be caught in the act.