What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism refers to an action in which one uses another’s work without proper citation. The topic rose to the surface in 2004 when a considerable number of public figures were caught, and it still remains a problem both in universities and society.
According to the plagiarism guideline proposed by the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development in 2008, one has plagiarized if he or she takes six or more consecutive descriptions from another source or uses others’ creations.
More specifically, there are two different types of plagiarisms. The first is called “Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism,” where one takes others’ descriptions or ideas without citations. The other is called “Self- Plagiarism,” which occurs when one reuses his or her own work without citing the source or simply re-publishes it. The most common forms of plagiarism are ranked in Figures 1 and 2.
As a great amount of information has become easily accessible through the Internet, plagiarizing from various sources can easily be seen today. Web sites that sell papers, among which some have already been plagiarized, for a certain amount of money have become an ideal solution for submitting quality papers in a short period of time, only continuing and exacerbating the plagiarism crisis.
“Students who intentionally do so are simply lazy,” professor Peter Kipp (English) said. “Unable to finish their assignments on time, they take others’ works. They could unintentionally plagiarize when they forget to cite sources or cannot find from which source they retrieved the information.”
* Reporters: Hur Jin, Ahn In-kyeong and Oh Seo-jin
* E-mails: cookiekat@ewhain.net, iahn@ewhain.net, seojinoh@ewhain.net