So What's wrong with copy and Paste. Discover the untold truth about the consequences of plagiarism today. Learn about how an education Minister lost her Phd after 32 years of copy and paste. Revealed, how the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease retracted an article submitted by two prominent Zambia Doctor and professor on account of plagiarism and banned them for 5 years. Discover how the Institute of Management Information System UK (IMIS) withdrew a course citing unoriginal work by Zambian students. Find out what universities are doing to step up the fight against the scourge of copy and paste.Get insight into how plagiarism policies are skewed to place responsibility on students. Become aware of the Plagiarism Reference Tarriff that could get you penalized resulting in anything from 0% award to expulsion without qualification. More importantly get exposed to the 10 degrees of plagiarism you wish they should have told you about.
Hello and welcome to Do the cite thing! AcademyI’m Jerry Sakala, founder and Lead Consultant on a mission to bring plagiarism awareness, prevention and higher education. It’s a “once in a copy & paste generation call-to-action” for students, faculty and scholars to stand up for an academic integrity standard that is at risk of being totally eroded by blatant and un-addressed plagiarism.Thank you for answering this calling to Do the cite thing!
Truth be told there are consequences to copy and paste. More so, in the world of education. Here you can see the New York Times published a story on its website on February 9 2013 titled “German fascination with degrees claims latest victim: Minister of Education” It’s about how after 32 years German minister of Education and research had her degree revoked due to “passages suspected to have been lifted from other publications without attribution”. Essentially she was accused of “copy and paste” after an anonymous blogger displayed her thesis with suspected sources online. In one word, Ms Schavan was guilty of plagiarism and that’s what’s wrong with copy and paste; it can boomerang back to haunt you even after 32 years in education.
IMIS (UK) withdrew its project exams from ZAMIM citing unoriginal work submitted by students. That’s whats wrong with copy & paste, it has untold consequences.
The education sector is not short of cases of consequences of copy and paste, that I was able to find a local example related to the University of Zambia. Google “plagiarism in Zambia” and you’ll find it, Here is copy of the email that circulated announcing the retraction notice then. It’s a case in 2007 where Dr Peter Mwaba and Prof. Chintu are alleged to have had an article published and was later retracted by the International Journal for Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IJTLD) on account of “…containing a large section of verbatim which was not properly referenced ”. In other words the duo was accused of “copy and paste” without attribution after the UNZA dean alerted the publisher. It is believed IJTLD banned publishing any articles by the said authors up to the year 2013 which is consistent with their anti-plagiarism editorial policy. This is what’s wrong with copy and paste, it has untold consequences in education.
In a warning to UK universities, Baroness Deech, former independent adjudicator for higher education in UK, in 2006 reiterated how vulnerable universities were to litigation due to a lack of consistent standards in handling of plagiarism cases. It is from this background that a Plagiarism reference Tarrif was published after plagiarismadvice.org was funded to conduct the UK national research. Given Zambia’s academic system based on the British system of education as well as both local institutions’ and students’ affiliation with British institutions of higher learning, it is only prudent to take a “leaf” from this UK plagiarism reference Tariff.