The Evils and Consequences of Academic Plagiarism

Originality is the attribute of a unique creation, a trait that sets such creation apart from all the others and gives it its own unique identity. This originality is the brainchild of the creator/ inventor or author and acts as the very soul of this previously inanimate object. In today’s world where freedom of expression, innovation and new thought is being encouraged, it has also become increasingly important to protect these unique creations and to preserve the original thought and intention of the author/ creator. As with everything else that is one of a kind, intellectual property, (or in laymen’s terms things that originate from the makers mind and belong to him) is also prone to theft.

The technical term for theft of academic works or works of writing is Plagiarism. Plagiarism has been recognized as an offence and now with the help of state of the art plagiarism detection software’s it has become easy to detect the offence and the violators. Academic plagiarism is rampant today mostly because of the widely used and easily accessible internet service, nifty search engines that throw up results as soon as you press enter and as strange as it may sound, the biggest factor is Laziness. Academic research is a complex and time consuming process and requires a great amount of hard work, focus, patience and dedication on the part of the researcher. Many individuals lack the ability to carry out full-fledged research and seek an easier way to prepare a research project and copy the hard work of a renowned author, change the sentence structure but copy the original thought and present it as their own finding.

The state university of new Jersey (Rutgers University) reported 103 cases of plagiarism during the years 2012-13 and 76 cases of cheating during the same period . According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics with a sample size of 43,000 students from different high schools it was found that one student out of every three said that they had taken help from the world wide web (Internet) to Plagiarize assignments while 59 percentile admitted to have cheated on tests . In another survey conducted by Donald McCabe of the Rutgers University among 24000 students from 70 different schools 58 percentile of the total sample size admitted to have practiced plagiarism and 95 percentile said they had practiced some form of cheating be it homework, exams or term papers and assignments.

Despite these shocking global statistics, the attitude towards the offence of plagiarism in India remains somewhat lukewarm. Plagiarism in itself has not been recognized for the malpractice it truly is and the devastating effects it brings along. The facade of it being an ‘innocent crime’ or an easy tool to keep up with competition must be brought to an immediate halt. In India even Fake products are rarely reported, this being said it is understandable as to what the fate of intellectual property might be when physical objects that are counterfeit in nature are widely sold, bought and accepted.
There is a need for creators, innovators, authors and IPR professionals to come together and protect their intellectual property and also participate jointly in investigations for IPR related violations. Stealing somebody’s original idea and intellectual property is anything but innocent and cannot and should not be ignored. A modern day solution to this problem is approaching a Brand Protection Service that looks into IPR violations and identifies solutions to deal with the problem.