A survey regarding awareness of ‘plagiarism while writing articles’ among students and faculty members of Indian colleges/universities

INTRODUCTION

Plagiarism in day-to-day life is understood as a person using someone else’s thoughts and/or words, including them in their work and making the world believe that the matter is original.^[1] Misrepresentation and hiding of text that is crucial in establishing the final outcome of a research study must be given importance while understanding the scope of plagiarism.^[2] The committee on publication ethics clearly describes the malpractice of plagiarism. Thus: ‘Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas, including research grant applications to submission under ‘new’ authorship of a complete paper, sometimes in a different language. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing or publication. It applies to print and electronic versions.’^[3]

There are many causes of plagiarism. Some authors are ignorant about language and writing skills; they do not know what to cite and how to cite.^[4] However, many authors deliberately indulge in shortcut methods, including literary theft and get their articles published in predatory journals to meet the cutoff dates, contributing to the rising trend.^[4]

The practice of getting involved in copying and stealing another person’s work for personal benefit has become easier in the current digital era where computers, smartphones and tablets are very common and the information is available at the click of a button.^[4,5]

Some authors resort to plagiarism as they are under pressure to seek funds. Research organisations provide scholarships/ schemes whereby companies/institutions can sponsor candidates to undertake research studies and ultimately obtain monetary profits through funds from research organisations.^[4] Others get lured by the fame^[6] that comes with publications, they are often tempted by the possibility of promotions,^[7] increased pay and better job prospects.^[8]

Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and a breach of copyright rules. The authors committing plagiarism can be punished for their acts.^[4,5] Many softwares, paid and free, are available using which the authors can detect the percentage of plagiarism in their articles and correct it before sending the article for publication.^[9]

Academic and research settings usually use the term ‘Plagiarism’, especially while conducting research and preferably during writing a manuscript. However, the term carries a much deeper knowledge with respect to its causes, different types, legal implications, detection tools and prevention techniques; every student, faculty member and researcher must know before publishing his article.

Students are often immature and it is difficult for them to grasp the concept of research statistics during their college life; they therefore end up copying matter from others’ works to make their own.^[10] This present study was undertaken to explore and understand the level of knowledge and awareness that Indian students and faculty members possess about the topic ‘Plagiarism while writing articles’.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A pilot survey was conducted from 10 to 17 February 2022 to understand the level of awareness among the students and faculty members of Indian colleges/universities on the topic ‘Plagiarism while writing articles’. A 20-item self-administered questionnaire was developed by the authors and circulated online on different WhatsApp groups through mobile phone media. A Google form was created and the questionnaire was made in English with multiple choice questions and short answer type questions, the entire form required 8–10 min to complete.

The questionnaire had two sections: the first collected participants’ demographic information and the second determined the views of participants on plagiarism.

A random sampling technique was used and a note was attached explaining the aim of the survey and ensuring data confidentiality. A total of 63 individuals participated in the survey and their participation was considered their consent. Inclusion criteria for the survey were students and faculty members of Indian colleges/universities, of both sexes and age groups between 18 and 65 years.

The responses of the participants were collected on Google drive and recorded in the form of graphs.

RESULTS

A total of 63 participants filled up the forms and their responses were recorded and analysed.

DISCUSSION

The present study tries to understand the level of awareness among the students and faculty members of Indian colleges/ universities with regard to the concept of plagiarism. Teachers and students write articles that have been specified as per the Council and even University Grants Commission norms but, due to lack of knowledge on the subject and lack of creativity and originality, many of them do not follow the rules of publication and often copy others’ texts to increase their number of publications. The practice of writing starts in childhood and while doing school homework, a student has to search and compose assignments or even do summer holiday works/projects. With Internet and social media access, students copy text, images etc. directly from Google. Searching and copying from internet websites amounts to cyber plagiarism of which students and many faculties lack awareness.

The market is flooded with different publication agencies that hire experts so that they can prepare good articles on different topics. These agencies make attractive advertisements to lure the students. Experts convert the article to suit the requirement of the buyer on the basis of monetary payment.

Most of the responders are students in the age group of 18– 25 years and still in the learning phase. It is therefore necessary to make them aware of the ethics of scientific writing as many admitted that they had never written an article in their lifetime. Workshops and seminars are crucial to alert the academic community about the need for publishing original text for the progress of a field. The saying ‘Publish or Perish’ correctly applies here.

Among the participants, 52.4% of participants admitted as per the survey that they have never written an article and even those who have written articles, few only have filled the copyright forms during publication. Many local magazines do not get copyright forms signed by authors. They simply receive articles from authors and publish them. During submission of an article, some authors want to get their article published in different journals for their wider publicity, they send the same article to various journals at the same time, that is however considered as breach of ethics. All this can occur due to lack of knowledge about the rules of plagiarism. To the question ‘What is Plagiarism?’ posed to the survey participants, majority of them gave feedback on copying, theft of text or idea and piracy reflecting that they had a preliminary knowledge about Plagiarism. Different aspects on the topic of Plagiarism were not highlighted by the participants; even though Plagiarism is considered a vast subject and must be known by all before sending articles for publication. About 46% of participants agreed that plagiarism is intentional and deliberately done.

Regarding self-plagiarism, where a writer cites his own published work, 69.8% agreed to the point that they can copy from their own published article and there is no need to cite themselves. For the question, in case, the author has to borrow a large quantity of matter from another article, 49.2% chose the option of using quotation marks. However, 22.2% chose to apply brackets and even 20.6% agreed with the usage of an asterisk sign. The result of the survey highlights that although most respondents knew about the guidelines, many still do not have correct information on plagiarism rules. About 73% admitted that the most effective measure to prevent writers from adopting plagiarism is to create awareness and educate them.

Among the participants, 58.7% knew that Turnitin is a plagiarism detection software; however, 19% said Zotero and 15.9% chose the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) option that are not plagiarism detection tools. People must be made aware of these software for their use. Experts must be involved that can explain the working of these software that will ultimately prove beneficial for all.

CONCLUSION

Plagiarism has always been a plaque, but it has been spreading like wildfire in the scientific world. The reality must be dealt seriously with by explaining the concept to students and teachers from school itself as copy-paste from books/internet starts during the preparation of their school assignments.^[3] Extensive campaigning against plagiarism may help limit the spread along with full enforcement of the law for copyright violations will help in removing the clouds of ignorance prevalent about the topic.^[3]

Attitude must be changed; the urge to deal with dishonest work needs to be tackled by the persons themselves by presenting original works and avoiding the use of incorrect or immoral shortcuts.

The present survey has a limitation of using a small sample size. It is recommended that a survey must be conducted on a larger sample size to address the issue in future. Furthermore, the study can be done on different fields such as medical, engineering students and faculty.