Plagiarism and Academic Writing of Learners of English

Plagiarism is an act of plagiarizing the work of others without the permission of the creator of the work. Someone who commits plagiarism is aware that the behavior he is doing is wrong and very disgraceful. Academic writing is a challenge for EFL students because there are many things that need to be considered, one of which is plagiarism. Plagiarism is a prohibited practice in academic writing. However, students from primary to secondary school are used to the method of copying or imitating teachers. So that it becomes one of the problems and bad habits that are common things that students often do when writing. According to this article, there are some students who consciously plagiarized other’s writing. Students who commit plagiarism mentioned that is because as a non-native speaker, the ability to summarize or paraphrase text is still insufficient to native speakers.  Aside from that, they are not very aware of plagiarism itself.   Plagiarism and Academic Writing of English Learners gathered data from three sources: (1) senior theses written in both English and Japanese, (2) other papers written by learners, particularly summary-reaction papers, and (3) input from learners via a questionnaire and informal interviews conducted during office visits. We observed the following characteristics of plagiarism in these students’ writing: (1) When explicitly quoting from a source, sources are supplied; (2) when paraphrasing or summarizing from a source, no reporting verbs are used, and no acknowledgment of the original author is given; (3) the original text is reworked, with phrases, parts of sentences, and lexis "copied," sometimes with tell-tale "mistakes" of Japanese learners added, such as dropping all the definite articles; and (4) the first and last paragraph(s) are the student's, with the entire body of the essay taken from the original. Therefore, in order to avoid plagiarism in academic writing, students should learn and practice more to develop their English writing skills.  

Name : Arisya Putri 

Class : 4 A 

NIM : 2223200027