What is Plagiarism?: A Guide for Law Students

This article on ‘What is Plagiarism?: A Guide for Law Students’ was written by Chelsi Antil, an intern at Legal Upanishad.

Introduction 

People nowadays are motivated to write, whether it is legal writing or not. Their piqued interest has grown over time. Students receive coursework, a thesis, and a dissertation at the undergraduate, postgraduate, and PhD levels. In which they must write their own words or opinions. However, students do not want to work hard, so they simply copy and paste the work of others from other sources and submit it as their own without crediting the original author. It comes down to the issue of plagiarism. To combat plagiarism, the UGC has set guidelines, and copyright violation has been declared at the global level. So, with the help of this article, let’s explore the concept of plagiarism in depth.

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism comes from the “Latin language” word “plagiarius,” which means kidnapping. In this way, plagiarism means taking the work of another person without his permission.

Generally, plagiarism means copying the work of another person and pasting that work in their name without giving credit to the original author. It is a violation of copyright laws. Nowadays, legal articles, blogs, case analyses, and other writings are published by several journals to make people aware of our laws as well as global laws. For that, journals have been providing sessions to lessen the rate of plagiarism. We know the law already exists, and we don’t have the right to change it. It is the work of legislation and our court. So, we can interpret the law in our own words and views. So, students have to learn the various tricks and methods to lessen or reduce the rate of plagiarism.

Kinds of Plagiarism

• Self-Plagiarism: Self-plagiarism means when the author himself copies his previous  work without giving the proper credit to the work. Sometimes it happens that the  author whose work has been published already somewhere and he copies the work and  sends it to a different platform for publication without giving the proper credit to the work.
  • Cyber Plagiarism: It is plagiarism in which one copies the work of another person from internet sources without giving him proper credit. That comes into the ambit of cyber plagiarism. 
  • Paraphrasing: In paraphrasing, one rewrites the ideas or views of another person and simply changes a few words in his own words. It implies simply rewriting the ideas or views of another person in their own words.
  • Duplicate plagiarism: In duplicate plagiarism, the person publishes the same work or writing on more than one platform.
• Direct Plagiarism: In direct plagiarism, one copies the entire work from the article, blog, etc. of another person and mentions the work in their own name without giving credit to the original author of the work.

How to detect Plagiarism?

Now, many software programmes have come to detect plagiarism, which tells people about the similarity of their work with the work that is already published somewhere. This software not only tells the level of copied work. but also tells how much of the work has been copied from which platform.

Some examples of plagiarism-detecting software are as follows:

1. Turnitin
2. Urkund
3. Grammarly Business
4. GradeMark

Exceptions to Plagiarism:

The work that is not considered plagiarism is as follows:

• All quoted work that comes under the public ambit does not come under plagiarism.
• Laws, rules, regulations, case names, and judgements
• All minor similarities
• All references and acknowledgments

Level of plagiarism by UGC

UGC divides the plagiarism rate into four parts:

• Less than 10% plagiarism rate is excluded.
• Plagiarism between 10% and 40%: If the work of a student falls under this category, then no mark or credit will be given to the student, and further time will be allotted to him to complete the work; the time shall not exceed 6 months.
• Plagiarism between 40% and 60%: If the work of the student falls under this category, then no mark or credit shall be given to him, and the next year will be given to him for resubmission of the work, and the time shall not exceed 18 months.
• Plagiarism above 60%: If the work of the student falls under this category, then, no mark or credit will be given to him, and his name will be removed from the project.

Suggestion or curbing methods for Plagiarism

1. Punishment shall be given to the student for the copying of more than 30% work.
2. Sessions shall be organized in the universities and colleges to reduce the level of  plagiarism.
3. If the work of the student is 20 to 30% plagiarized then, the student will be asked to  revise the work and resubmit it within the allotted time.
4. If the plagiarism is continuance. Then, strict action shall be taken by the authority  against the student.
5. Faculties shall provide the account of software to the students to detect the level of  plagiarism.
6. The undertaking shall be taken along with their work, writing, Research paper,  thesis, and dissertation.

Conclusion

This article finds that plagiarism is a violation of copyright laws, and UGC also has plagiarism issues. Plagiarism is not exclusive to our country. It is also a crime on a worldwide scale. As a result, the faculty must take strong action against the student for violating the UGC’s plagiarism norms. This will assist students improve their understanding, knowledge, communication, and writing skills.

References 

• ‘UGC Regulations for Plagiarism’, Research Experts, available at: https://www.researchexperts.in/ugc-regulations-for-plagiarism/
• Ish Kumar Shammi and Rehan Ul Haq, ‘What is plagiarism and how to avoid it?’, 50(6) Indian Journal of Orthopaedics (2016)