Ethics in Plagiarism

Ethics in Plagiarism Name Subject Date Ethics in Plagiarism Plagiarism can be explained as the practice of copying the words, expressions, or ideas of another author’s work and using them as one's own original work (Volz, 2007). It is unethical in business as it is a form of business misconduct. Volz (2007) states that when one steals from one author, it is plagiarism, but if one steals from many, it is research. The definition of plagiarism may seem clear, but it presents a complex ethical issue especially owing to the vast availability of digital content where one cannot know who exactly to quote or reference as the original owner of a particular work. There is a thin boundary between referencing, quoting, adopting, and copying (Volz, 2007). One of the main causes of plagiarism is competitiveness in research. With the current technology where copying and pasting is easy, there are more cases of plagiarism. As much as plagiarism is common in this day and age, most of the students and other members of the public are not aware of the crime. They still copy information or use other people’s idea without recognizing the original author. There are no guidelines that have been set to recognize plagiarism (Lathrop &Foss, 2005). Many authors think that using information found on the internet is free yet some of the information has been copyrighted (Haidegger &Visse...