Plagiarism could be a major research concern of investigation within the academic world. It varies from the unreferenced use of published and unpublished ideas of others and from requests for research grants to the publication of a full paper under “new” authorship, sometimes in a different language. It can occur at any level of preparation, research, writing, or publishing: it refers to print and digital versions. In 2009, Koul et al. describes plagiarism as a form of cheating and stealing, when one person takes credit for the intellectual work of another in cases of plagiarism. According to Fishman (2009), plagiarism happens when someone does the following: (1) uses words, ideas, or work products; (2) credited to another person or source identifiable; (3) without attributing the work to the source from which it was obtained; (4) in a situation where there is a reasonable presumption of original authorship; and (5) in order to obtain any profit, credit, or gain that does not need to be financial. A considerable portion of the total number of genuine deviations from a great research hone is evaluated by Pecorari (2012).
While numerous organizations are inquiring about their definitions of literary theft, small work has been so far wiped out clarifying and legitimizing it (Gert and Stefan 2015). Nonetheless, there are many different opinions on how to interpret plagiarism and what makes theft of copyright inexcusable because it distorts rational credit. The word plagiarism is described, according to the Oxford English Dictionary online 2017, as the practice of taking the work or ideas of someone else and carrying them on as one’s own.
This description, however, just gives some information about it and more detailed criteria are needed to make an act in a plagiarism case (Demirdover 2019). According to a study in the USA, there are five types of plagiarism that occur, direct, mosaic, self, paraphrase, and accidental, all focused on unethical issues:
- 1.
Direct plagiarism: Without citing or pointing out the source, the entire text or part of the documents are copied word for word. This is one of the most common plagiarism types.
- 2.
Mosaic plagiarism: The plagiarizer borrows phrases, without citation.
- 3.
Self-plagiarism: The author uses his/her own earlier work without crediting it.
- 4.
Paraphrasing/rephrasing: This is similar to direct plagiarism, except in this case the plagiarizer rearranges the words of the text or sometimes rephrases them according to their contents.
- 5.
Accidental: Unintentional direct, mosaic, or paraphrase, without citation
Many of those teaching in higher education have considered plagiarism in the classroom as a form of dishonesty (Jereb et al. 2018). According to a report by plagiarism organization, “studies indicate that approximately 30 percent of all students may be plagiarizing on every written assignment they complete.” Up to 55% of college presidents say plagiarism in students’ papers has increased in the last decade. Plagiarism carries severe disciplinary and financial consequences. Repeated acts of plagiarism will lead to dismissal from the college.
The knowledge and skills of the student are threatened by academic misconduct; at the same time, it weakens the ability of the instructor to assess how well the student is performing in the course (Ryan et al. 2009). The principle is of supreme importance in all university programs, but it becomes particularly important in professional degree programs such as pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, and nursing as pass-outs (students) from such courses should have high ethics because their expectations impact human well-being directly (Neill 2008).
Regardless of the fact that plagiarism is carried out at all academic levels in this study, we focus on student misconduct and plagiarism, and why do students use the words or ideas of someone else and pass them on as their own? What factors are affecting this behavior?