Criminals in Uniform; Walking Intellectual Thieves

OBJECTIVES:

1. To know the student's perception about plagiarism.

2. To identify how the students plagiarized.

3. To emphasize the awareness of plagiarism among STEM students.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. What are the views of students towards plagiarism?

2. How do students plagiarize?

2.1 Intentionally?

2.2 Unintentionally?

3. What are the specific facts or knowledge that the students know about plagiarism?

3.1 Legal?

3.2 School rules?

3.3 Implementation?

As the internet becomes more likely to be the top option of an individual in searching for

his/her needed information, plagiarism then arises. We all know that plagiarism is the act of

presenting someone else’s work as one's own without giving full acknowledgement and citations.

Thus, this research entitles "Criminals in uniform; walking intellectual thieves" aims to present the

significance and importance of knowing what plagiarism really are and the consequences we might

face doing this such thing. Hence, raising awareness to be one of its main goal.

For students, who is the one of the main suspect of stealing of intellectual property, this

study will definitely engage them in what are the different do's and don’ts in terms of getting
information. This will also open their eyes on what the word 'plagiarism' really means because

sometimes they tend to misunderstood this word. Also, they can learn to give proper citations to

the author or writer that is indeed worthy to be acknowledged for their effort to provide reliable

facts. The study will further discuss the school rules and legalities about doing this crime so that

the students will be aware of the penalties they might receive. Thus, they will be afraid to do it

again resulting to lower number of students plagiarizing.

On the other hand, this study will also be crucial for every teachers for them to be aware

of those people who are attempting to commit plagiarism. It is for them to criticize their students

if they have learned things from them, especially when they ask to do something like assignments

and other school works. They must know this study to convince students not to plagiarize. It is

somehow a wakeup call for this workers of the government to provide a feasible solution to heal

this bleeding act of criminality.

Exploring the beauty of this study for schools, this will truly open their eyes that indeed

plagiarism is rampant among every institution because of the students itself. Being aware of it

means doing something to prevent it from spreading, just like amending the school rules that is

responsible for plagiarism of students. Also, the proper implementation of this new rules and

providing good punishment for them is a must so that they will not be doing it again. We all know

that schools is very important in molding one's personal capacity so, they are also liable if the

students are not growing because of plagiarism that they definitely needed to eliminate.

As also stated above, raising awareness when it comes to plagiarism is our goal. Not just

for the students alone but of course for everyone who is part of our community. Especially for the

members of the society to avoid the dangers of plagiarizing. One is that it can detract from your

credibility. It alerts your reader to the fact that you are not a full member of the community, not
immersed enough in the community to know what’s right and what isn’t. It is important to write

in your own words so that you contribute something new to society. If everyone copied someone

else’s writing, it would be impossible to advance as a community.

For the nation, this study will play a vital role in the growth of our country. Because of

criminality like plagiarism, we cannot go beyond or move forward with regards to where we are

now as a third-world country. Higher opportunities and state are waiting for the Philippines if we

can successfully erase breaking of rules. There is no such country/person that becomes rich or

great if there are thieves on their side. So, if this research will be effective in raising awareness to

people, it will result to a low number of people plagiarizing. Thus, we can achieve prosperity

within our nation.

The future researchers will surely benefit this study of us. For them as researchers who will

conduct the same study, this research may serve as their reference for base line data. This study

will also provide them ideas that will facilitate their study to be more relevant for their

beneficiaries. Especially, in studying the roles of students in plagiarism. Likewise, our claims and

information can be used as their related studies.

Indeed, the research being conducted by us seems to be common at its nature but definitely

rich when it comes to significance. The study will purely raise awareness in doing plagiarism in

general as mention earlier that can help diminish the bloating number of plagiarizers. With that,

we can achieve greater heights and progress as a student, community, and nation and of course for

our research.
 INTRODUCTION

Plagiarism occurs in a variety of settings, including collaboration or cooperation between

students working together (Wojtas, 1999). According to Hopkin (1993), Plagiarism by students

is a moral maze, because it is raises important ethical and moral questions about good or bad,

right or wrong behavior and about acceptable or unacceptable practices. Further, Plagiarism

stresses that ‘copyright abuse and plagiarism are like two sides of a permission coin: on the one

side, people take without asking and on the other side, people take without telling.
 According to Roberts and Rabinowitz (1992), student perceptions of cheating situations

are contingent upon the interplay of multiple factors such as need, provocation, opportunity and

intentionality. Nonetheless some broad patterns are apparent in the literature.

In addition Wilhoit (1994), Brandt (2002), Howard (2002), Students plagiarize in four

ways:

First, students steal materials from another source passing it as their own. For example,

copying a whole paper from a source text without proper acknowledgement.

Second, Submitting a paper written by someone else (e.g. a peer or relative) and passing

it off as their own.

Third, copying sections of material from one or more source texts, supplying proper

documentation (including the full reference) but leaving out quotation marks, thus giving the

impression that the material has been paraphrased rather than directly quoted.

Lastly, paraphrasing material from one or more source texts without supplying

appropriate documentation.

This study focuses more about the roles of a student as a number one 'suspects' in

committing this such crime. It will genuinely deals with how this group of youngsters view

plagiarism as it is and how it is being done by them. Also, the research certainly emphasizes and

promotes awareness to students, particularly to STEM students being the top strand in Senior High

School that deals with a lot of researches - not knowing they are already stealing one's intellectual

property without giving proper acknowledgement. Although the students mean it or not, we are

indeed definitely prone in doing plagiarism because of numerous factors tempting us to do so. Just

like the internet being always available source of information for us to 'copy paste' though. Thus,
this paper will definitely tackle the involvement and responsibility of every students in this such

crime.

The bottom line is, this study strongly stands that as a student or any other people,

regardless of any temptations or influences, we should not plagiarize but instead we find other

ways on how to get and understand information. We should know the real view of what the

research is and its do's and don’ts when regards to getting of intellectual property of others. As an

individual, we have the capacity of writing in our own words but most often we tend to neglect it

because we know that it is already available at net. No matter how hard it is to not plagiarize, in

the end after meditating on this study, we will be having a conclusion in our minds that plagiarizing

is indeed a crime that has the consequences enclosed to it.