Plagiarism And The Internet

It was every English teachers’ nightmare. One lazy Saturday afternoon, you decided to read your students’ argumentative essays. A particular work caught your attention. You put down your pen and smiled with satisfaction. This student has greatly improved from the first time you met him. However as you read, a sense of recognition hit you. You have read this text before. A quick search in the internet verified your suspicion. It was the same text from the columnist section of the past issue of Reader’s Digest. Although some parts are omitted and some are added, still it’s the same. Awe turned to bewilderment to disappointment. You collected all possible evidences, anticipating and dreading the next meeting. Plagiarism has been a dreadful problem that continuously plagued the academic community (Paynter & Mills, 2004). It is regarded as unethical and illegal intellectual theft that affects the academia and the prosperity of a society. For instance, in an …show more content…
This age brought not just tremendous opportunities for students to learn more but also great challenges in the academic field. An investigative study was conducted and revealed the demonstration of a strong relationship between student plagiarism and internet usage (Ma, Lu, Turner, & Wang, 2006). Internet usage increased to 151.6% (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2011) since 2000. Nearly universal access to it exacerbates the problem of student plagiarism and the decreasing sense of academic integrity among students and even professionals. Teresa Fishman (2010) said, “Now we have a whole generation of students who’ve grown up with information that just seems to be hanging out there in cyberspace and doesn’t seem to have an author.” In short, the internet, although a helpful innovation provided an array of opportunity to cheat-whether intentionally or