Punishment for Plagiarizing

04/26/2017 9:24 PM by Alex in



An example of plagiarism would be using someone else’s information, ideas, or words knowingly as if you made them up. Accidental plagiarism examples would be to forget to quote an author's words, or not including the source where the information came from.


What Are The Consequences Of Plagiarism In The Workplace?


Plagiarism consequences are often related to academics, what people may fail to see is that it is also related to the professional world as well, and it brings serious consequences along with it. Your reputation along with your credibility will come into question and it will have an impact in your profession life, hindering professional development opportunities.


Colleagues may alienate you since now your a now a person that should not be trusted. Not to forget the legal consequences that will be brought on to the company an the potential reputation damage the company will face.


Instances of plagiarism in your field may be related to using someone else’s images, taking credit for an idea that is not yours, not listing a source, using blog content, replicating an E-book.


What is academic plagiarism?


The same description applies to all areas of plagiarism, basically meaning any copied work. In the academic world Oxford describes it as "The necessity to acknowledge others’ work or ideas applies not only to text, but also to other media, such as computer code, illustrations, graphs etc. It applies equally to published text and data drawn from books and journals, and to unpublished text and data, whether from lectures, theses or other students’ essays. You must also attribute text, data, or other resources downloaded from websites."


Online Technology has changed the way we live our lives and the way plagiarism and the internet are managed. However it has made it easier to get caught plagiarizing in university. Now a days intellectual property and plagiarism go hand in hand not only in schools but also with technology, literature, etc. Plagiarism has been linked to famous and respected people such as Jane Goodall, Fareed  Zakaria, Maureen Dowd, just to name a few


What Happens If You Get Caught Plagiarizing in College?


Many students are told about their school’s policy on plagiarism but do not understand what happens if you get caught plagiarizing in college. Are institutes addressing the question of why do college students plagiarize and are they giving them enough education on the consequences for copyright? Do students really understand that plagiarism is against the law or is it that they do not care if they get caught for plagiarism?


The reality is some students are in hurry to get school work done due to other course work they are doing and don't take into consideration what happens if you get caught plagiarizing. Their goal is to get work handed in and  forget the rules as to what is not considered plagiarism.


Many people do not take into consideration who gets cheated when a person plagiarizes. Besides getting themselves into trouble, plagiarism effects transcends into loss of revenue for the original content owner. As you can see the impact of plagiarism affects not only the plagiarizer but also the person who originally created the material, making plagiarism a crime. The simple answer is do not plagiarize.


Some plagiarism guidelines to follow in order to not commit plagiarism are:

  • don't quote directly as your own or without due source acknowledgement;
  • stay away from paraphrasing someone else's work without giving them  proper acknowledging it, even if you change wording around;
  • do not cut and paste from online resources to create your own paragraphs.


You can make the case that in order to stop plagiarism it should be taught that plagiarism in high school will not be tolerated and that plagiarism is a crime. Within the material the get detailed information on consequences of copyright, history of plagiarism and plagiarism penalties. To further their education on the subject they could wriet an essay on plagiarism.


Depending on the school or the profession you are in, even being accused of plagiarism can lead to you being suspended or expelled.


The level of plagiarism and the type of plagiarism can affect if plagiarism is added to your academic record. This can damage your chances of entering another school since most schools have a tight policy on plagiarism. Even if the plagiarism was not for an academic project, you can still be penalized for having plagiarized content in the past. This can include blog posts, articles, and other written works that are posted under your name. 


What Do You Do If You Are Accused of Plagiarism?


If you are accused of plagiarism, the first thing that you should do is find out who is accusing you of doing it. You also need to figure out what content is in question. There are tools online that you can use to scan your content and even your whole website to find content that is plagiarized. If the content is online, you should remove the content from your website or wherever it is posted until you find out exactly what is plagiarized and if it is even plagiarism. 


Can you go to jail for plagiarism?


Punishment for plagiarism can range from a misdemeanor to a fine or even up to a year in jail. In certain cases it is considered a felony under federal and state law and depending if you made any  money from the copy written material, you can receive a fine or up to ten years in jail.


How much plagiarism is allowed?


If even a small percentage of material is copied it is still considered plagiarism.



Types of Plagiarism


There are different types of plagiarism and each has their own punishment.  The type of plagiarism that most people think of is direct plagiarism, which is copying someone else’s work word for word. This can be avoided by using quotation marks and attribution to the original creator.


One of the other common types of plagiarism is self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is harder to find since it happens most often in an educational setting, so some schools have no policy about this type of plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is copying your past work without noting that it comes from the other work that you have completed.


The last main type of plagiarism is accidental plagiarism. This happens a lot because many students and professionals forget to cite all of their sources or misquote the original source. Accidental plagiarism is very serious and has the same punishment as other types of plagiarism. If you are worried about plagiarism, you can simply run your work through an online scanning tool and any areas that are plagiarized will come up.




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