Plagiarism Issues for Higher Education

According to Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) ‘There is much difference between imitating a man and counterfeiting him.’

The word plagiarism means to present someone else’s work or ideas as your, with or without their consent. Plagiarism could be done in multiple forms. Some of these include verbatim (word for word). In this technique, you eliminate quotation mark and references of the sources from a quotation to show your independent work however you have drawn someone else’s idea. Another form of plagiarism is done by cutting and pasting from the internet without clear acknowledgment.

In this, the information derived from the internet is not properly referred to the sources and bibliography. Moreover, the next technique of plagiarism is one of the most used technique. This is known as paraphrasing. In this, you find context. Then you alter some of the words with the ones close to it and you change the structure of the sentence. In this you didn’t mention the author who wrote it initially and thus creates a misleading impression that the entire idea is yours. After this comes technique of inaccurate citation. For any research you do with the help of the internet you need to mention the accurate site. In this technique, you didn’t mention or refer the accurate sites or mention the correct sources from where the extract is collected from.

Plagiarism is unethical but still, it is being practiced throughout the world. In 2010 Josephson Institute Centre for Youth Ethics surveyed 43,000 high school students in public and private schools and found that one out of every three high school student admitted that they used the internet to plagiarize assignment. There are many reasons given for being involved in plagiarism. These include poor time management, ease of the use of the internet, lack of awareness that it is strictly unacceptable. Students are mainly the ones involved in this act. When they fail to manage their time properly, they tend to do last minute work and the easiest way to do this is to cope with by plagiarizing. Easy access to the internet further promotes this and make it easier and time-saving. Some of them doesn’t even realize that being involved in the act of plagiarism can question their credibility as a student or an employee. And in such cases, they can face severe consequences. This may include destroying of a student or professional reputation. Anyone found guilty of plagiarism could be expelled from the institution and his/her career could be in danger. Moreover, it creates a feeling of suspicion among the fellow members and the authorities and can lead to trust issues. In some cases a person involved in any such activity could face legal repercussion for example in a country like the USA there is SOPA law (Stop Online Privacy Act) which fights the online trafficking in copywriting intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Anyone involved in this could be severely punished in accordance with this law. Furthermore, in some cases the culprit has to face monetary repercussions and they have to pay certain penalties to the institutions.

To prevent yourself from the severe consequences of being involved in plagiarism, you should try avoiding it and this can be done through paraphrasing the text and writing on your own rather than copying it from someone else. Moreover, if you are copying from any site or any other source you need to mention the proper and authentic reference for it or either to write a text in quotation marks and quote the proper reference with it.

In conclusion, plagiarism is ethically and morally unacceptable. And everyone needs to prevent it so that you may need not to cry over the spilled milk.

The Basic Research

Basic research is done without having any clear goals. The goal of a basic research is to collect information of how nature and people are put together. According to Clifford Woody ‘research accompanies defining and redefining the problems, formulating hypothesis or suggested solutions, organizing and collecting data and evaluating data and at last drawing a valid conclusion.’ These are even the steps for a basic research. Initially you make a hypothesis. Hypothesis can also be defined as a question of interest. A hypothesis is always in a predictive language. Once you formulate a hypothesis you move to the second step which to define the sample or in other words operationalising the hypothesis. Operationalising a hypothesis means to further define the hypothesis into measurable terms. After that you define your method of research that whether you would be doing a survey, or interview, or focus group, etc. Once you are done with choosing an appropriate method of research you start collecting the data. After collecting the data you draw graphs and other statistical diagrams to draw valid conclusion and interpretations from the graph. And finally you conclude your research by defining that either your hypothesis is accepted or rejected. And on the basis of research conducted you give reasons for the result obtained. There are several forms of basic research. One of them includes qualitative and quantitative research. A qualitative research gives you more detailing on any topic however a quantitative research mainly includes numbers and statistics. It gives you a reliable and proper numbers and helps you to draw valid and accurate conclusions. Another form of basic research includes applied vs fundamental research. Applied researches are done to find solutions for immediate problems faced by the society or an organization however, fundamental research depends on generalising and formulating theory. Any research on nature or behavioural phenomena are good examples of fundamental research. Another form of research includes conceptual vs empirical research. Conceptual is something related to the abstract idea however an empirical research based on any concrete ideas. Conceptual research is mainly formulated by the philosophers and thinkers to develop understanding. On the other hand empirical research is a scientific research that is based upon facts and figures that can be observed or easily experimented in the daily life.

There are thousands of researches going on throughout the world. But one of the most important question arouses is that why these forms of basic researches are necessary? There are multiple benefits of these basic researches. These include expansion of knowledge and promotion of innovation, sometimes it has a huge economic benefit. Basic research or ‘blue skies research’ is like any other scientific research as mentioned earlier. Basic researches are broad and it open new ways to many other related fields for example if you want to check the effect of stress on mental health of a person. This situation can be observed from many different angles. This may be seen through a psychological perspective, a sociological perspective by looking at the reasons behind this stress, an economical perspective by looking at the financial problems being faced by a person in case of poor mental health. Hence, from a single problem can be seen from many diversified perspective. Sometimes these basic researches became a foundation for many major researches which brings a huge economic benefit to the society. Though the returns of these researches may not be immediate it may take a long time to show up its effect. At times investing in basic research is considered to be a waste of money by the concerned authorities as it didn’t provide them with an effective output.

Sometimes basic research is blurred with the applied research. An applied research has a predetermined goals that needs to achieve by a basic research for example to introduce a new medicine into a market you first need to check its effect on human health however a basic research is conducted for self-interest or for gaining knowledge of effect of different variables in different situation. Sometimes a basic research can also be an applied research. It is driven from curiously rather than financial or technological gain. And for a doing a basic research you need not to be scientifically expert in that area. An amateur scientist can also conduct any basic research. 

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