Introduction
This assignment aims at examining two articles on reducing the plagiarism by using software. One article is 'A study of electronic detection and pedagogical approaches for reducing plagiarism' by Chia- An Choa and other article is 'Formative feedback within plagiarism education: Is there a role for text-matching software' by Davis M. This assignment has four parts where different articles and journals have to be analyzed in order to have look at the methods adopted by researchers to avoid plagiarism. The primary aim of doing this assignment is to demonstrate the understanding of main ideas of quantitative methods.
Section 1
Plagiarism is a serious problem these days. Colleges and Universities keeps on devising on new ways in order to teach students not to plagiarize. Often stiff competition, to improve their grades and desire to get a well-paid job influences students to use others words and ideas without proper citation for an assignment. This leads to plagiarism and violation of guidelines laid down by Universities to do an assignment. Both the articles including 'A study of electronic detection and pedagogical approaches for reducing plagiarism' and 'Formative feedback within plagiarism education: Is there a role for text-matching software?' have examined various approaches that can help colleges and universities to teach students not to plagiarize.
In 'A study of electronic detection and pedagogical approaches for reducing plagiarism', author has emphasized on the growing trend of plagiarism by students in their university and college assignments. As per various studies carried to determine the rate of academic dishonesty such as cheating and plagiarism, it was found out that about 23% of students reported they had done some kind of cheating in 1941. On the other hand, in 1964, this number rose to 59% (Davis & Carroll, 2009). Various other researches have shown that plagiarism done by copy someone else's ideas and words through electronic documents available on internet is a serious problems among students. Since internet has made the process of getting information easier so students instead of brainstorming and putting their own ideas consider copying someone else's work from internet. The problem of plagiarism is so serious that there are several (about 100) internet sites as reported by TechTrends magazine that have a database of essays and assignments (Davis & Carroll, 2009). Students can obtain an entire assignment from these sites and copy them in his assignment instead of doing any hard work. Although colleges and universities provide with pool of resources along with assignment brief but students primarily prefers cutting a part of assignment and copying them in his assignment. Considering plagiarism and academic dishonesty as a serious problem, author has emphasized on some factors that may have contributed towards this rising problem. One of the reasons is the widely available electronic sources of information may have contributed towards students plagiarizing their assignments. Secondly, students face immense pressure to obtain good grades and stiff competition in colleges and job market. This is one of the reasons for students plagiarizing and copying someone else's work (Davis & Carroll, 2009). Thirdly, lack of enforcement of tough rules against academic dishonesty by faculty and administration encourages students to cheat. Faculty often goes through plethora of issues such as lack of knowledge of institutional procedures, concern for ruining student's career, reflection of poor teaching skills etc. Hence, they feel reluctant to report plagiarism. Author in this article has mentioned about two kinds of plagiarism prevalent among students- intentional and unintentional plagiarism. Bringing crib notes to examination hall or copying someone else's answers is often intentional. On the other hand, plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional depending upon the student. Intentional plagiarism comprises of submitting someone else's work to the university. While inappropriate paraphrasing, not acknowledging sources, and inappropriate citation, large amount of quoting etc can be acts of unintentional plagiarism. As per a study done by various researchers on undergraduate students, when they were asked to read an original document along with ten re-written versions of same document, about 50% of students had problems differentiating original text from re-written (Davis & Carroll, 2009). In order to avoid plagiarism, researchers used different instructional treatments including giving feedback to students after their, providing examples of plagiarized work or both. These studies although helped students to know what plagiarism is but didn't help them in determining their performance in writing assignments.
Author in this article has used quantitative research method where two level groups with undergraduate students were instructed by two different lecturers. First group comprised of 20 UG students enrolled in on-campus business report writing and also 22 UG students enrolled in an on-campus MBA operations management class. These students were instructed by different lecturers. Second group comprised of 41 UG students enrolled in two sections of report writing instructed by a single lecturer. After the assignments were done by both level groups, it was found out by researchers that students who were given detailed instructions about avoiding plagiarism and paraphrasing practice techniques were likely to contain less plagiarism in their reports. Hence, this research provided a clear evidence of the fact that some students plagiarize unintentionally due to lack of knowledge of proper skills to do an assignment. Further, students who were shown Turnitin software to detect software and its working had less plagiarism in their report. As per this article, author emphasized on the idea that instructions about avoiding plagiarism and practice paraphrasing can help students avoid plagiarism to a great extent. For this, institutions should also provide the facility of plagiarism detection software to students in order to check their reports before their final assignment is due.
In 'Formative feedback within plagiarism education: Is there a role for text-matching software', the author has focused and argued on using effective education to enhance the students understanding of academic integrity. The author focuses on international students who are new to higher education English speaking countries. Providing plagiarism education through individual feedback to students and helping them know the working of plagiarism detecting software helps students to avoid plagiarism greatly. Universities and colleges mostly used a plagiarism detecting software known as Turnitin (Chao & Neureuther, 2009). It is accountable to highlight the unoriginal work of students and present a plagiarism report. The anti-plagiarism software also provide marker with original source from where student might have copied the text. Author feels that the three approaches that lead to students plagiarizing their work include depending on some sources, inappropriate citation and inappropriate paraphrasing. These three approaches often lead to plagiarism. In order to avoid such plagiarism, 'Catch and punish' approach don't hold well. Formative feedback and providing instructions to students about what exactly plagiarism is can help to avoid it. There is plethora of websites on internet that teaches tutors about how to make students avoid plagiarism. Students can adopt approaches such as drawing ideas from multiple resources instead of relying on one, adopting appropriate paraphrasing techniques and correctly citing other's work in assignment (Chao & Neureuther, 2009). It is crucial to address the difficulties faced by students while doing assignments and in cases they fail to comply with requirements, their work can be taken as plagiarized. Institutions must be recognized in order to provide students with appropriate and extensive instructions about avoiding plagiarism and students must not be punished for plagiarizing. Most of the times, international students face issues coping up with new academic culture. Hence, their work often reflects plagiarism. These students may not able to learn the requirements and follow all learning outcomes in just thirteen weeks so they may need specialized help to learn so in acceptable ways. In this article, a case study was carried on students of Oxford Brookes University, UK where it was found out that anti-plagiarizing software such as Turnitin can help to reduce the main components adding to plagiarism (Chao & Neureuther, 2009). These are reducing dependence on one source, reducing inappropriate citation, reducing inappropriate paraphrasing and reducing the amount of plagiarism.
Although both these articles were intended to discuss the approaches that can help avoid plagiarism but there are some gaps between the researches methods used in both articles. In order to successfully find the ways to avoid plagiarism, the best way can be to use mixed methods for research and adopt both qualitative and quantitative research methods (Carroll, 2005). Using Mixed Methods for research will enable universities and colleges to provide instructions to students about avoiding plagiarism, adopting proper citation and paraphrasing techniques and also provide formative feedback to every student after the work. Besides this, students must be shown a video tutorial of working of Turnitin or other tool used to detect plagiarism (iParadigms, 2007).
Section 2
The article being used for this section is 'Content Snacking and What You Can Do About It' written by Angelo Fernando. In the initial stage of the article, the author has set a background of how content snacking is rising these days. Initially, the author has defined content snacking as creating short and crisp story that engages users. With internet, user can get stream of information in one go which he can easily adjust to fit the need at that moment. Nowadays, users demand crisp and engaging content instead of long stories due to time constraint (Reh, 2007). Hence, it is entirely upon the content creator to create brief, funny and short stories instead of long ones. On the other hand, there are some users who prefer looking at sources of information to ensure its credibility.
However, in literature review, the author has taken up the question that how do content creators can provide useful information and reach audiences when primary interface being used is Smartphone, I-Phone or e-book reader. Since providing and creating content for smaller screens is increasing so content creators have to uplift their thought process (Reh, 2007). Experts communication consultant describes that in order to create engaging content for small screens, content creators have to think more strategically about what information can be shared to make engaging story?
Both the literature review and initial stage of the article is connected in order to give readers a consistent flow. It is seen in most articles that the ideas are not connected which makes reader disconnected. The author has relied on mixed research methods in order to gather information. The article comprise of quotes from experts of communication industry while it also includes information from secondary sources such as academic journals and magazines (Reh, 2007).
Section 3
The article being selected to complete this section is 'Company Culture' written by F. John Reh. This article outlines that company culture plays an important role in determining the success of a business. A company with an adaptive culture is likely to outperform than its competitors due to number of reasons. In such companies, employee engagement is very high and hence employees work passionately towards achieving goals of the company (Reh, 2007). It is therefore very crucial for a company to assess its culture frequently to ensure the approach adopted is adaptive and encourages employees to do well. The research method used in this article is qualitative and author has relied on secondary resources to gather information. As per author, company culture usually evolves with time and with every new employee. Once an employee is hired, he/she brings positive or negative culture with him/her. Hence, the company culture has to be so competent that doesn't get alter with anyone's culture. Instead employees get involved in their new company's culture (Reh, 2007). Some of the characteristics of adaptive culture used by companies across globe include clarity of mission & vision, effective & efficient communication between departments, employee engagement, customer-oriented, strong workplace ethics and efficient business processes put in place. Once companies assess their culture, it is crucial that they align it as per their strategic goals. The company culture which is aligned to the goals of the company can help to achieve superior performance and adapt to change effectively. The author has followed all the ethics while writing this article since the article is not biased and doesn't favor any one entity or group (Reh, 2007). Secondly, this article reflects honest view point of the author and talks about fair ideas about company culture. The article has authority since it is posted by F. John Reh. Although the article doesn't have references mentioned but it comprises of back links wherever required. This reflects that the information provided by author is credible and reliable. One more reason that proves the credibility and reliability of article is that it is posted on a reputed website which is known to post only valid and reliable information for its users (Reh, 2007).
Section 4
For this section, the research question selected is 'Implications of rising use of social networking sites on personal and professional life'. Five journals have been selected to analyze the gap between different research methods.
Nowadays, around 1.5 billion people are active on social media but the critical question is its affect on personal and professional life. It is often great to create an account on SNS (social networking sites) but it can lead to some serious implications in personal as well as professional life such as blackmailing by people using personal data, problems with boss, family, spouse etc (Das, 2011).
Social media has come up as an effective information gathering source. Nowadays, people prefer using social media rather than relying on traditional methods to gather information for personal and professional use (Baker, 2011). One of the reasons for its widespread use is its cost effectiveness.
In today's era, SNS have come as an effective tool to stay connected with friends and co-workers. However, one of the rising concerns is over-using it which creates serious implications for personal and professional life (David, 2010).
Social media is being effectively adopted by children, youth, and adults across world. On one side it has helped them make worthy relationships both personally and professionally but on the other hand, it has led to bullying, loss of privacy etc (Okeke, 2008). This has led to serious implications of using social media in personal as well as professional life.
In today's modern times, social media websites are effectively being adopted by people of every age. SNS depends upon the short and crisp messages rather than mass messages (Persnico, 2010). This platform is effectively being adopted by large companies to create user-oriented content.
In all the five journals, the research method used is qualitative and hence respective authors have dependant on secondary sources to gather information and find answer for the research question.
Conclusion
In nutshell, it can be concluded that plagiarism and academic dishonesty is a growing concern among universities and colleges these days (Cherry, 2003). With internet being a primary source of information, students are found copying complete texts or a part of text in their work leading to plagiarism. In order to avoid this, the best ways to provide extensive instructions to students about avoiding plagiarism, reducing dependency on one source, using proper citation and paraphrasing techniques. Along with it, students must be given formative feedback after their work to help them understand their weak points and they must be taught the working of anti-plagiarism software- Turnitin (Kotler, 2005). This assignment has covered all aspects of reducing plagiarism by using software thoroughly.