90% Of Students Cheat On Essays, According To Study

According to a study conducted by South Bank University, the Daily Mail revealed that over 90% of students had registered on the ‘non-originality’ scale when their essays were moderated by a checking system. 

This highlights the fact that due to today’s easily accessible online resources, students are increasingly tempted to copy large chunks of academic texts to reinforce their argued points throughout university assignments. 

Many argue that these students are getting away with submitting plagiarised content due to a fear from lecturers and university personnel that their teaching will therefore be questioned or time-consuming lawsuits would be conducted. 

Although it is tempting to utilise the strength of academics to make your essays read professionally, there are many consequences of copying content without reference or credit. 

Disqualification 

Academic projects that are found to be copied can often be disqualified by your institution, resulting in the assignment attaining a 0% mark. For the time and somewhat effort put into the majority of the piece, why risk having to retake the module or even semester later down the line? 

If you are lucky enough to get away with submitted plagiarised content, why would you want a grade that you haven’t earned? There is a sense of personal achievement when receiving a positive mark for a hard-worked assignment and simply copying others’ work is an easy option. 

Expulsion 

Plagiarised assignments could result in more than just disqualification, and could lead to expulsion from your specific course or even overall institution depending on its extent. After working so hard to attain your university status – is it worth wasting that graft on one of many assignments? 

Expulsion would not only affect your university period, but further take effect on your CV and career in the future. Employers will note that your work has been found guilty of plagiarism in the past, and that may result in a lack of trust which may lose you a job opportunity. 

Legal Action 

Not only can plagiarism damage your academic and professional reputation, it can become a legal matter. An author that has had their content copied without accreditation or reference is entitled to sue the plagiarist. 

If you happen to copy the work of an academic who writers for a career, it is often the case that if they find their work unauthorised, they could proceed with legal action. 

However, many university students are unaware of these copyright laws, and the fact that they have grown into an Internet generation makes it even more difficult to teach them the stature of authorisation. 

University Changes 

Universities are no doubt attempting to provide students with a greater understanding of plagiarism and its impact on their academic and professional reputations. Many module guides now include specific sections devoted to plagiarised content and its consequences. 

To directly tackle the issue, software such as TurnItIn has been implemented by institutions to check content for plagiarism. The software then provides a report in which tutors can review, creating a percentage of unoriginality. 

However, as mentioned previously, many lecturers ignore these percentages if they are alarming due to the fact that it may therefore question their teaching methods. 

To solve the problem, there needs to be a combined drive from institutions and software specialists to implement an effective method of taking action against every case of plagiarism.