Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

THE CULTURE OF PLAGIARISM 
Universities are concerned with the ease in which student work may be “copied and pasted” from the 
internet and represented as original work. The culture of plagiarism is changing with students becoming more 
perceptive in how they go about creating original “non-original” work. Students are learning how to construct work 
that will not trigger a reaction from detection software and in doing so “beat the system” (Bean, 1996). The reasons 
for student plagiarism are varievyd3\; some have poor time management skills, while others are looking for the 
easiest way to complete course assignments (Harris, 2000). Others see the World Wide Web as a source that is easy 
to access original documents from which they can cut and paste or create a pastiche of statements from different 
sources creating an “original” work (Bugeja, 2000). Many students will collaborate with other students on 
assignments and will “copy a few paragraphs without acknowledgement” (Dordoy, 2002). Most often students 
plagiarize written submissions and project reports (Franklin-Stokes and Newstead, 1995).