Plagiarism

Sun Tzu, in his famous book ‘The Art of War’, wrote that ‘all war is based of deception’. However, nowadays, the deceptions used by people have gained a lot of new definitions. One of the worrying new definitions that surfaces in the world today is plagiarism. People who plagiarize the works of others, for example in a written form, can be seen as individuals who deceit other people in order to gain reputation, or to complete a certain tasks, or simply to pursue many reasons that will earned them freedom from certain obligations, to finally achieved their joie de vivre, in a manner that cancels out the very basic ethics of journalism.

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, plagiarize is defined as stealing and passing off ideas or words from others as one’s own, without crediting the source. It can also be defined as committing literary theft, as plagiarizer tends to present their plagiarized work as a new and original idea or product. The word ‘plagiarize’ itself originated from the 17th century, which was coined from the Latin word plagiarius, which means ‘kidnapper’.

Many researches have been conducted on this topic. Plagiarism can be basically categorized into 5 main types. The first type is the Copy and Paste Plagiarism. This can be noted as a simple copy-and-paste a certain sentence or paragraph to be fitted into one’s own. The second type is the Word Switch Plagiarism. Here, plagiarizer tends to change a few words in the materials they plagiarized in order to fabricate the material and make it look as their own. The next type is called the Metaphor Plagiarism, which involves elaboration of the original materials to have it passed as new material and cleaning up of any traces which can lead back to its original. Idea Plagiarism, which is also a type of plagiarism, can be defined as the copying of one’s original idea, and spun it a little to make it one’s own without crediting the original work. The last type of plagiarism is known as Reasoning Style Plagiarism or Organization Plagiarism. By this, plagiarizer tends to copy the whole article, and placed certain paragraphs or sentences in a different manner as the original so that the structure will differ.

The advancement of modern technologies has always been accused as the culprit for this cancerous epidemic. With any information made available within a click away, people opted to plagiarize to make their life easier. With the line between research and plagiarism in haze, people can’t even tell the difference between those two. This has make defining plagiarism even more difficult.

Plagiarism has weakened people’s ability to train their mind and create something totally creative and original. According to Darwin’s Theory, human will always evolve in order to fit the challenging nature and follows the rule of the jungle, which stated the survival of the fittest. But by turning into plagiarism, humans are actually reversing the role of evolution, and instead of becoming more intelligent and diligent, they become lazier and rely on others to survive. If this trends continue, the human brains will lost certain golden abilities and grow weaken by each generation.

A certain countries, plagiarism has received its appropriate recognition as a major and serious problem that was seen as the epidemic that may crippled the integrity of journalism’s foundation. Individuals who were found guilty of plagiarism were dealt with accordingly, and received appropriate punishment. For example, Raytheon CEO William Swanson in the United States of America endured public embarrassment and a pay cut in May 2006 when he was ousted for copying some of the rules in his book, "Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management," from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, humor columnist Dave Barry, and an obscure World War II-era book by W.J. King. Many universities around the world have placed plagiarism as a serious offence, and offenders will face immediate dismissal if were found guilty. In Malaysia, the scenario is quite different, as plagiarism has yet to gain attention from the local universities. However, there is a reported case in November 2006, where Brendan Pereira, The editor of Malaysia's newspaper, the New Straits Times, was forced to step down amidst allegations that he plagiarized the work of an American journalist. These were just a few examples of the punishments for plagiarism on a bigger scale.

As a whole, the public acknowledges the matter in hand. However, more never than often, they have yet to treat plagiarism as a major offence, and deem strict punishments for those who chose to plagiarized. Even though the enforcements of the Copyright (Amendment) Act 1997 in Malaysia, which came into force in 1st April 1999, are being strictly conducted throughout Malaysia, there are still reports on the violation of the Act. This has revealed the lack of stiffness in the law. People still plagiarize on daily basis without the fear of getting caught. What is more worrisome is that the fact that undergraduates nowadays are prone to plagiarize in their studies. To achieve better grades and graduate with honours, more students found refuge in the hazy and confusing laws that touched on issues of the subject.

This problem has to be addressed with much attention and urgency, as this problem will affect the quality of the graduates, and might dented the image of the institution. Students should be enlightened on the depth of the problems, and the severe punishments if they were caught doing it. The fight to prevent plagiarism among students should be treated as a war, and determination to win the war must be high on everyone’s list.