by Ebey Soman

Created on: September 19, 2008

We are often told about the issues of plagiarism. I remember personally that in our high school, teachers used to give us handouts defining plagiarism especially when it came time for the term papers or lengthy reports. Today, many students dominate the headlines across America and the world - caught cheating and copying other people's work for academic or commercial gains.

If we were to broadly interpret the definition of plagiarism, then we understand that just about everything is someone else's work and need to be cited. Personally, I tend to dislike such widely applied interpretation of the definition but it is what it is. One thing that surprised me what if you had to use a conversation you had with a friend as part of your work, then you have to cite it even though readers cannot even access such information to see if it is credible or within context. Now like if that is not bad enough, popular beliefs hold that listing sources in the back and/or using footnotes would be enough to avoid plagiarism but the essay by Canadian politician Ralph Klein then serves as an example contrary to such beliefs. To even partially cite sources can lead to a cause being build aganist you for Plagiarism.

Many students do not know the existence of software provided by the universities to help cite references and sources properly and then check for errors in your citations. I also see a dilemma with the "common knowledge" exception to plagiarism, what if you know a bit more facts and details that some other individuals? Overall, the Information Literary Tutorials at Saint Johns University Library Website (http://libraries.stjohns.edu/ilt/) provides some clear cut examples, problems and ways to citing credits and avoiding plagiarism which is a major problem in today's world where intellectual property rights is a growing field full of litigations.

I urge each and every student to watch the tutorial to avoid getting in trouble in classes or getting a failing grade on your assignments or even worse - like being kicked out of your school. If you do not think that universities are serious, then take a look at some of the recent headlines. Even popular Harvard student authors caught copying entire ideas and quotes from people without citations have been brought to trial and their reputations ruined. More recently, Ohio University student was left stranded in Greece after her Study Abroad program directors found plagiarism in one of her papers. So yes, this is serious issue and i hope each student get serious about what needs to be done.

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