Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:

“There is an important difference between intentional and unintentional plagiarism, and all judgments about plagiarism, along with any punishments for plagiarizing, should be adjusted to account for that difference.”

Respond by either supporting or opposing this statement. List your reasons and cite at least two sources. You may use Internet or library search sources for this discussion.

comment 1

According to me, I totally disagree. The issue in this case is not about whether the act of plagiarism is intentional or not. The basis of this statement is that plagiarism is a big academic offense (Dhammi & Rehan, 2016). Firstly, a competent writer can only be known if he presents a manuscript that has not been presented elsewhere and any information that is not his is referenced accordingly. The author should research in details whether the ideas, statements, data and arguments in the manuscript have been presented elsewhere instead of making restatement errors which jeopardize his writing integrity. Secondly, there are many mechanisms available to check and correct plagiarism before handing in a manuscript and a competent author should be familiar with these mechanisms. Websites like www.plagiarism.org, www.turnitin.com and www.ithenticate.com can be used by authors to detect any plagiarism within the manuscript (Handa, 2008). Also, it is unclear on how to establish whether the plagiarism in a manuscript is intentional or unintentional hence a reader or anybody reviewing the manuscript can only observe incompetence of the author. In this regard, an author may intentionally commit the offense of plagiarism but claim it was unintentional which still clear the offense. With these reasons, I strongly disagree that there is an important difference between intentional and unintentional plagiarism and on this note punishment for plagiarizing should be indiscriminative on the basis of whether its intentional and unintentional.

References

Dhammi, I., & Rehan, H. (2016). What is plagiarism and how to avoid it? Indian Journal of Orthopaedics, 50(6), 581-583. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.4103%2F0019-5413.193485

Handa, S. (2008). Plagiarism and Publication Ethics. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol, 74(30), 301-303. Retrieved from http://www.ijdvl.com/text.asp?2008/74/4/301/42882

comment 2

Personally I believe there is a difference but both should be held to the same standard, stealing other peoples work is a very serious issue and is not acceptable in any highly academic setting. That being said people do tend to make mistakes and accidentally plagiarize even when they don’t know they have but that is what college and high school are for, to make mistakes and learn from them. A website called write check gives one of the best ways to not steal information which is “information is perfect for your paper, Read it and put it into your own words. Make sure you do not copy verbatim for more than two words” (Write check, 2019). Paraphrasing along with what I always do initially upon reading the post is citing my source immediately. Next there are ehtics involved with stealing other peoples work a website states “words can be stolen. US law states that original ideas, stories, phrases, and other groups of words are protected by US copyright law” (Deep, 2019). Along with it being simply wrong to steal other peoples work, in the real world it can end in serious lawsuits and worse jail time.

Refrences

Deep, M. (2019, November 06). Ethics Of Plagiarism. Retrieved June 24, 2020, from https://www.plagramme.com/ethics-of-plagiarism

Write Check. (n.d.). Ways to Avoid Plagiarism – Plagiarism Checker: WriteCheck by Turnitin. Retrieved June 24, 2020, from http://en.writecheck.com/ways-to-avoid-plagiarism/