.Monday, May 31, 2010 ' 9:00 PM Y
Plagiarism in primary school is not a serious matter.
Plagiarism in secondary school is a serious matter.
So what is the difference in the seriousness of the similar matter but in different educational system?
In Primary school, students seldom do projects. Their homework and test come from either textbook, workbook or in assessment books or papers. So there is little or no projects involved that requires online research. In tertiary education like Junior Colleges, Polytechnics and Universities,
there are lots of projects that need to be completed.These projects
reflects in their scoring systems in the year-end result slips. To successfully complete these projects, online researching is required. When students plagiarise information and put them into their projects, it is said to be a project that is not done by the owner. Answers are not generated by the owner itself. In another words it's simply called as copying. The possibility of getting a higher or better grade would lead to unfair judgement towards peers who used personal understanding on that topic itself. More over, more serious cases like examination projects if successful, would lead to being rewarded with a degree or scholarship. Such rewards are not deserving. Take for example of a Turkish assistant professor, Anilir, who plagiarized about 40 percent of the data and parts in the University of Tokyo. It caused him his doctoral degree revoked.
However, we must be aware that plagiarism has also a serious impact in primary schools. For an example of a primary 6 student copying essays from a well-known writer. Yes, plagiarism is a critical issue on educational sector but we must still be aware that in primary school, students take take their examination through test or exam papers. Similarly with Tertiary students but tertiary students include projects as one of the contributions in their final year end result. Therefor, there isn't really a huge impact on primary school students but a huge ones on tertiary students.
Overall, plagiarism is one thing that as students to best stay away from when completing any work. It is useful in plagiarism of notes for personal revision purposes if applicable but not strongly adviced in plagiarism on projects purposes.
Er Chin
Labels: Plagiarism
