Nowadays, information is available at the fingertips and can be accessed easily with the help of internet. As a result, plagiarism in academics is rising at an alarming rate in many countries and become a major problem for universities and other educational institutes.
The causes of plagiarism in academics are multi-fold. Firstly, students copy the work of others without consent because they want to compete with their fellow classmates. They want to stay at the top position in their class. Secondly, all universities have deadlines for submitting the work. Hence, students have no option left and they steal the work or ideas of others. If they do not choose this way then they might have to lose the marks or credits of the subject. Finally, plagiarism leads to the loss of creativity. Students find the required work on the internet and because of that, they will not try to create their own content and work.
There are many solutions to prevent plagiarism in academics. Universities can adapt the latest available technologies and software to detect the copied or stolen work of students. Moreover, based on detection universities can set criteria according to the requirements. For instance, universities can set that more than 90% of work must be plagiarism-free in order to get marks or credits. However, if a student is caught stealing another’s work, then the student has to face strict punishments decided by the university. Furthermore, Institutes can encourage students to submit their original work by being liberal with deadlines for submitting work.
In conclusion, plagiarism can impact the creativity of students and they might become habitual of it. Hence, universities should implement strict measures with the help of various softwares and encourage students to submit their own work.