Faculty of Computing and Informatics

UMS Labuan International Campus

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
IT41103 ETHICS & PROFESSIONALISME IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY
TITLE: Plagiarism
GROUP MEMBERS:
No

Name

Matric No

1.

HELEN KIU CHAI CHING

BI13110060

2.

YAP CHAI YUN

BI13110289

LECTURER NAME: MADAM AINNUR HAFIZAH

BINTI ANUAR MOKHTAR

Table of Content
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: Ethical Issues in Information Technology Scenarios: Plagiarism
2.1: Scenarios: Plagiarism
2.1.1 Scenario 1.. 2
2.1.2 Scenario 2.. 3
2.1.3 Scenario 3.. 4
2.1.2 Scenario 4.. 5
2.2 Scenario Chosen: Scenario 4
2.2.1 Scenario Summarization.. 6
2.2.1 Ethical Explanation.. 7-8
Chapter 3: Recommendation and Suggestion based on Scenario 4
3.1: Recommendation and Suggestion For Instructor.. 9
3.2: Recommendation and Suggestion For Student . 10-11
Chapter 4: Conclusion
4.1 Conclusion.. 12
Chapter 5: References 13
Chapter 6: Appendix 14-17

Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1: Introduction
What is plagiarism? Brian Martin (1994) had stated that plagiarism is conventionally seen
as a serious breach of scholarly ethics, being a theft of credit for ideas in a competitive
intellectual marketplace. Or, plagiarism can also defined as the deliberate or reckless
representation of anothers words, thoughts, or ideas as ones own without attribution in
connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or otherwise. (Instrument
of Student Judicial Governance, Section II.B.1.).
Plagiarism not limit to words alone but others as well such as copying images, data,
ideas and etc. Plagiarism could be copied materials words from books, journals, articles
and others sources without cite or clarify the sources. Citation of words without properly
citation is consider as plagiarism as well. Paraphrasing is rephrase of facts or opinion of
sources whilst expressing the main ideas of original author. There is a fine line between
paraphrasing and plagiarism. If the paraphrasing statement is close to the original content,
it is consider as plagiarism not paraphrasing. Paraphrasing emphasize of taking the original
works ideas and express in your own wording. Usually, paraphrasing make the passage
shorter or summarize of the passage, as an overview of main points.
Plagiarism is bad. Plagiarism block and prevent students develop their and acquire
their own skills while learning. Besides that, commit plagiarism make future employers
question about the particular person integrity as well as performance in future. Integrity
plays an important in obtain employment especially for occupations such as lawyer, doctor
and etc. Furthermore, commit plagiarism is commit fraud to faculty and it show
disrespectful to peers whom done their work by themselves. Moreover, plagiarism deprive
the original authors credit to work. Whenever, plagiarism is wrong and unethical act
regardless intentional or not since it is taking credit for someone elses work and claimed
its as own. Plagiarism is a two-sided blade and bad practise as well. It is hurt the person
who plagiarize as well as the original author. Plagiarism can be avoid in several ways and
correct citation is one of its.

Chapter 2: Ethical Issues in

Information Technology Scenarios: Plagiarism
2.1: Scenarios: Plagiarism
In this assignment we had looking and search on the internet about the ethical issues in
information technology scenarios for plagiarism. There are four scenario most related to
the topic that we are chosen which are plagiarism. The four scenario are listed as below:

2.1.1

Scenario
Scenario
Scenario
Scenario

1 :The
2: The
3: The
4: The

Case
Case
Case
Case

of
of
of
of

Multivoiced Paper
the Lost Citation
the Borrowed Computer Code
the Too-Similar Paraphrase

Scenario 1 :The Case of Multivoiced Paper

Mary Jones, an instructor for a graduate course in the English department, was
marking term papers when she came across one that caught her attention. First of
all, one paragraph seemed to be suspiciously familiar. In fact, it was from an article
she herself had written and she remembered how fond she had been of a certain
choice of words.
There also seemed to be differences in writing style within the essay itself: at times
the writers style was characteristic of this students work, with some grammar errors
and sentence structure problems; at other times it was extremely sophisticated,
more characteristic of an expert writer in the discipline.
Mary Jones began to investigate further. By entering a few words from suspicious
passages in Google, she instantly found that her student had plagiarized from several
sources available on the internet.
Using her own knowledge of the field, and by checking the articles listed in the
bibliography, she found more examples of direct copying without quotation marks or
in-text references. What her student had done was paste together plagiarized
paragraphs from a number of sources, with some of her own wording in between.
The paper therefore appeared to be written in many different voices.
Professor Jones wrote asking the student to come in for a meeting. She also reported
the plagiarism to the department Chair and the report was then forwarded to the
Dean. In the end, the student was given an official warning and a zero in the course.
(Source:https://www.uoguelph.ca/graduatestudies/sites/uoguelph.ca.graduatestudi

es/files/Academic%20Integrity%20for%20Graduate%20Students_021414_0.pdf)

2.2.2 Scenario 2: The Case of the Lost Citation

Julio had been working on his thesis for more than a year and submitted his most recent
draft to his supervisor, Dr. Xiao, for review. Dr. Xiao noticed a few passages of text that
contained words and phrases that she was certain had been developed by others. They
were not quoted or cited in Julios thesis.
When Dr. Xiao asked Julio about these passages, he honestly couldnt remember where
he got the text. He said he thought he had written it himself.
Dr. Xiao asked Julio to do some searching to find the original source. After several days
of going through his notes and searching the internet, Julio was finally able to find the
original text. He was shocked and ashamed to see that the version in his thesis was
virtually identical to the original. He reported back to Dr. Xiao, and promised to change
the text and properly cite it.
Dr. Xiao asked Julio how this happened, and Julio explained that he cut and pasted
material from journal articles to create his notes, and then cut and pasted from these
notes to write his thesis. He thought he was adding citations as he went, but somehow
he forgot to do so in this case.
Dr. Xiao urged Julio to be more careful in the future, since his thesis committee wouldnt
be so understanding if the final dissertation contained similar problems. She suggested
they meet again soon to talk about note-taking strategies and ways to prevent accidental
plagiarism
(Source:https://www.uoguelph.ca/graduatestudies/sites/uoguelph.ca.graduatestudies/fil

es/Academic%20Integrity%20for%20Graduate%20Students_021414_0.pdf)

2.2.3

Scenario 3: The Case of the Borrowed Computer Code

Candace had a difficult time completing her coursework for her masters degree in
Computer Science. The final paper of her last course was long overdue by the time she
handed it in, and she cut a few corners to get things done.
By this time, she had lost track of many of the sources she used in the paper, but she
decided she didn't have time to find them again. She also wasnt able to get the proper
results using her code, but she knew it should work, so she inserted the coding from a
friend and used his results as her own. She decided to forget to hand in her own source
code, since she didn't think it would be a big deal.
She also saved the document as a pdf that was "locked," so it could not be cut and pasted
for plagiarism checking. She was relieved to hand in the final paper and start focusing on
her thesis project.
About two weeks after she handed in the paper, Candace was informed that she was
accused of academic misconduct. She was called to a meeting with the Associate Dean of
the College and the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies.
At the meeting, the Associate Deans explained that Candace's assignment copied several
sources word-for-word, and did not cite all of the sources used. Because she did not
submit her source code, the instructor suspected that she had used someone elses code
to get her results.
Candace admitted she hadnt been as careful as she should have been in documenting
her sources. She also explained that she only used the results of her friend because of
the problem she had with generating her own results. The Dean warned her that
regardless of the problems with her results it was a severe offence to hand in another
students work as her own. She was told that she would receive 0 on the assignment,
which meant she would fail the course.
(Source:https://www.uoguelph.ca/graduatestudies/sites/uoguelph.ca.graduatestudies/fil

es/Academic%20Integrity%20for%20Graduate%20Students_021414_0.pdf)

2.2.4 Scenario 4: The Case of the Too-Similar Paraphrase

After reading many journal articles for her literature review assignment, Maria creates a
document and pastes in a variety of excerpts from articles that she wants to comment on.
She writes her assignment around these excerpts, changing some of the words so that
they are not identical to the original phrasing. She cites all of the paraphrases in the proper
format.
When her instructor, Dr. Thompson, reviews the assignment, he is impressed by the
breadth of Marias research. However, he notices that some of the word choices are a bit
odd, and he finds the writing hard to follow. He decides to look at the article Maria is citing
in one particular passage. When he finds the original passage, he sees that the structure
of Marias sentences is almost identical to the authors. Even though Maria has changed a
few words, the majority of the text is the same as the original.
Dr. Thompson asks Maria to come in and he shows Maria that the wording in her
assignment is very similar to the original article. Maria asks what she did wrong, since her
paraphrase uses some different words and is cited. Dr. Thompson explains that
paraphrasing means using as few words as possible from the original and it also requires
changing the structure of the text.
He tells Maria that at most, a paraphrase should use 20% of the language of the original
and that no more than 3-4 words in a row should be copied, unless she is quoting the
source. Maria is surprised to hear this, and when she compares the documents again, she
can see that she has clearly copied much more than she should have.
To help Maria understand how to paraphrase, Dr. Thompson asks her to look at the text
again and then explain the passage to himthis time without looking at it. Maria is able
to put the idea in her own words, and Dr. Thompson is impressed by her understanding.
He tells her to use this technique in the future to help avoid copying too much. He asks
her to rewrite the paper using the techniques they have talked about.
(Source:https://www.uoguelph.ca/graduatestudies/sites/uoguelph.ca.graduatestudies/fil

es/Academic%20Integrity%20for%20Graduate%20Students_021414_0.pdf)

2.2

Scenario Chosen: Scenario 4

In this assignment we had looking and search on the internet about the ethical issues in
information technology scenarios for plagiarism. There are four scenario most related to
the topic that we are chosen which are plagiarism. However, we will only conduct the
research based on one scenario case among the four scenario case that we had found,
which are Scenario 4 : The Case of the Too Similar Paraphrase

2.2.1 Scenario Summarization of Scenario 4

The scenario 4 is about the case of too similar paraphrase. The scenario 4 is about a
student which named as Maria are been indicated plagiarism for her literature review
assignment. Her instructor, Dr Thompson had noticed that the word and writing in her
literature review assignment are odd and writing are hard to follow. This had make Dr
Thompson to look at the article Maria is citing in one particular passage. He found that
the Maria only changed a few words and her sentence almost identical to the authors
article. Hence, Dr Thompson shows Maria her works which are almost similar to the
original articles her used in her literature review assignment. However, Maria does not
understand and do not know where she did wrong. This is because Maria think that she
had cited the articles properly and had changing few words and structure of sentence that
make not identical to the original articles. After Dr Thompson heard her explanation, Dr
Thompson told Maria she still considered as plagiarism because if her decide to
paraphrasing that particular passage it should use only 20% of the language and there
are not more than 3-4 words in a row should be copied from original articles unless she
had quoting the source. Besides that, Dr Thompson also told Maria how to avoid plagiarism
and more details on how to paraphrasing the particular passage from particular articles.

2.2.1

Ethical Explanation

Plagiarism is unethical. Ethics is set of belief about right and wrong behaviour of a culture.
Ethic plays an important role within maintain sustainability as well as stabilization of a
society. Meanwhile, integrity is a cornerstone of ethical behaviour. Ethic and integrity work
along to ensure the society become better, treat everyone equally, secure meaningful
employment, lessen stress and succeed at business (Mccartney & Parent, n.d.).
Why plagiarism is an unethical? This is because it is an act of theft. As what had
stated by Syed Shahabuddin (2009), plagiarize as to steal and use the ideas or writings
of another as ones own and depriving authors of credit might also be a form of theft.
Plagiarism taking someone elses works and pretending as its own work. And this is
stealing others intellectual property. Intellectual property is product or creation of human
minds which has commercial value. For example, ideas, books, inventions, and others.
Stealing is unethical since it is against the ethical framework of society and culture.
Furthermore, original author has its legal and ethical right for personal or monetary gain
but plagiarism affect the original authors benefit by limit this ability (Neil Kokemuller,
n.d.).
Besides that, plagiarism is unethical because it is goes against the educational
objective. Typical school, college, or universitys objective is assist students by unfold their
talent and help them to grow. Plagiarism against it by deprive the chance for them to
study as well as acquire skill while learning. Written assignments and papers assigned by
school is aims to help student critical thinking, create original work as well as communicate
in written form. But plagiarism circumvent the purpose of educational objective. In
addition, a degrees is a proof as well as evidence of its holders capability and knowledge
towards particular field whilst in some of industry, employment of employee prerequisite
of its degrees due to the profession requirement. If someone gain of employment on the
basis of qualification that they had not gained, they might risk to the employers and others.
And this is against the principle of utility.
Plagiarism is a fraud and deception. Neil Kokemuller (n.d.) had further described
that plagiarism is a broadly concept of cheating in school. Copied works from others and
claimed it as your own is equates of deceive of lecturer and committing a fraud. Cheating
is against the principle of divine command in ethic framework. Divine command theory is
reflective of divine nature of God and assert that morality is ultimately based on command
of God. According to divine command theory, things are good because of God command
to do so and evil if God forbids it from being done. Regard to divine command theory,
cheating or fraud is action that God forbids it to do so because it is evil. As a result,
plagiarism is unethical since it is against the divine command theory.
According to Kants categorical imperative which emphasize of that the
unconditional moral principle of ones behaviour should accord with the universalizable
maxims which respect persons as ends in themselves, the obligation to do ones duty for
its own sake and not in pursuit of further ends. There are two versions for categorical
imperative. The first one is emphasize of always act in ways that you willing it become
universal law that everyone else should do the same in same situation, or put it simple,
moral rules must be universalisable. Meanwhile the second version is act in the ways that
treat both your and other people as ends in themselves but not as a means to an end or
moral rules must be respect human being.

For example, a rule is propose which is to earn credit for plagiarized work.
According to first version of Kants categorical imperative, if everyone do plagiarise then
the report will no longer be credible to indicate students knowledge, as a result lecturer
will not give credits for the plagiarized work. And this is against the proposed rule.
Therefore, it is unethical and wrong to plagiarized work. If refer this proposed rule to
second version of Kants categorical imperative, plagiarism is commit a fraud and deceive
lecturer. And this is unrespect the lecturer as lecturer had been treated as a means to an
end. Thus, plagiarism is unethical and wrong according to second version of Kants
categorical imperative.

Chapter 3: Recommendation and Suggestion based on Scenario 4

3.1: Recommendation and Suggestion For Instructor
As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. The best ways to stop plagiarism is
prevention. There are some strategies for prevent plagiarism as state at below:
1. Paper should be in specific format with a given number of references which from
various resources. For example, paper should have proper citation and have
variety of references or require student to turn in those photocopy of resources
used. This would lessen the temptation of student take risk to plagiarize as lecturer
can track back to sources used ease.
2. Periodically check progress of paper. Continually checking progress make student
difficult to plagiarism to someone elses work. Moreover, this ensure procrastinator
is on the track and hence reduce the temptation of plagiarism.
3. Educate students about plagiarism by giving a clear and explicit definition of
plagiarism. A clear concept of plagiarism and ways to avoid it could reduce the
chances of student to plagiarize. This is because there might have circumstances
that student unintentionally plagiarize and by educated them, students will avoid
plagiarism. Moreover, policy regarding plagiarism should be discuss and outline
its penalties as well.
4. Encourage originality and discourage plagiarism by create assignment that cannot
easily be found on Web. If there is limited sources on Web, student cannot
plagiarize. This encourage originality of works as student do it by themselves.
5. Require student email a copy of software as well as submit a hardcopy. Softcopy
can submit to plagiarism search engine such as Turnitin. And this might hinder
student from plagiarism.

Besides of prevention of plagiarism, in case of there is a plagiarism, lecturer can detect

the plagiarism through few of signs as stated as below:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Check for unusual formatting.

Notice of various skill levels of writing or mixed writing styles.
Review the references used in the paper.
Review the citation styles.

3.2: Recommendation and Suggestion For Student

There are some guidelines that can help student how to prevent plagiarism. Before you
avoid to plagiarism, someone may knows what type of action is considered as plagiarism.
1. Avoid plagiarism when using sources in yours papers by knowing what must be
documented.
i.
Specific Words and Phrases
ii.
Information and Ideas
If you want to use the authors specific words or phrases, you need to place those
words within the quotation and credit the source. Same goes with the situation
that you obtained the ideas and information from a source then you must also
acknowledge or document the source. (Madison, 2014)

2. According to the Harvard Guide to Using Sources document, it had stated few
guidelines for avoid plagiarism, which are as below :
i.
Keep track and print out the electronic source (College, 2016)
ii.
Do not cut and paste; File and label your sources (College, 2016)
iii.
Keep your own writing and your sources separates (College, 2016)
iv.
Paraphrase carefully and acknowledge the source explicitly (College,
2016)
v.
Do not save your citation later (College, 2016)
vi.
Quote your source properly (College, 2016)

3. 6 Ways to Avoid Plagiarism in Research Paper

Its easy to find information for most research papers, but its not always easy to
add that information into your paper without falling into the plagiarism trap. There
are easy ways to avoid plagiarism. Follow some simple steps while writing your
research paper to ensure that your document will be free of plagiarism.
(WriteCheck, 2015)
i.
Paraphrase
ii.
Cite
iii.
Quoting
iv.
Citing Your Own Material
v.
Citing Quotes
vi.
Referencing

4. Preventing Plagiarism : Proper Citation and Best Practices

For the purposes of avoiding plagiarism, the key is simply to make sure sources
are clearly cited one way or another. There are some fix for avoid plagiarism such
as add quotation marks and a citation, Separate source material and add clear
attribution for each, Quote the original text directly with attribution, Add proper

citation prior to or after the paraphrased section, and Add proper citation.
(Preventing Plagiarism, 2016)
Below there are some example of proper citation and proper paraphrase :
1. In her essay on teaching Huck Finn, Fishkin points to several ways in which the
novel broke new ground for American fiction: it departed from the genteel English
novel tradition; it incorporated earthy vernacular kind of writing that jumped off
the printed page with unprecedented immediacy and energy; and AfricanAmerican voices had a great deal to do with making it what it was. (Preventing
Plagiarism, 2016)
2. A big part of what makes Huck Finn such an important literary landmark, according
to Fishkin, is the degree to which it freed American writing from the constraints of
British novel, incorporating earthy vernacular and African-American voices.
(Preventing Plagiarism, 2016)
Furthermore, there are some best practices for avoid plagiarism such as know and
understand your colleges policy, keep your sources organized, cite when in doubt and
manage your time wisely. (Preventing Plagiarism, 2016)

Chapter 4: Conclusion
In conclusion, plagiarism could be copied materials words from books, journals, articles
and others sources without cite or clarify the sources. Plagiarism is bad. Plagiarism block
and prevent students develop their and acquire their own skills while learning.
Furthermore, Plagiarism is unethical. This is because it is an act of theft. Plagiarism taking
someone elses works and pretending as its own work. And this is stealing others
intellectual property. Intellectual property is product or creation of human minds which
has commercial value. For example, ideas, books, inventions, and others. Stealing is
unethical since it is against the ethical framework of society and culture. Therefore, several
guidelines need to be taken to tackle this problem and avoid the plagiarism. For instructor,
they can periodically check progress of paper, educate students about plagiarism,
encourage originality and discourage plagiarism by create assignment that cannot easily
be found on Web and require student email a copy of software as well as submit a
hardcopy. For students, they can do the proper citation and proper paraphrase, cite and
acknowledge the source, quoting and do some best practices such as know and
understand your colleges policy, keep your sources organized, cite when in doubt and
manage your time wisely.

Chapter 5: References

References
College, H. (2016, March 28). A Publication of the Harvard College Writing Program. Retrieved
from Harvard Guide to Using Sources:
http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page342057
Madison. (2014, August 29). Avoiding Plagiarism. Retrieved from The Writing Center:
https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_plagiarism.html
Preventing Plagiarism. (2016, March 30). Retrieved from AccreditedSchoolsOnline:
http://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/preventing-plagiarism/
WriteCheck. (2015). Retrieved from Turnitin: http://en.writecheck.com/ways-to-avoidplagiarism/

The Instrument of Student Judicial Governance. (2015). Chapel Hill: University

of North Carolinao. Document Number)
Dictionary, C. E. (2014). Categorical Imperative (12 ed.): Harper Collins.
Kokemuller, N. Why Is Plagiarism Unethical? Retrieved 30 Mar, 2016, from
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/plagiarism-unethical-7240.html
Martin, B. (1994). Plagiarism: a misplaced emphasis. Journal of Information
Ethics, 3(2), 36-47.
Mccartney, S., & Parent, R. Ethics in Law Enforcement.
Shahabuddin, S. (2009). Plagiarism in Academia. International Journal of
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 21(3), 353-359.

Chapter 6: Appendix

1. http://instrument.unc.edu/

2. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/categorical+imperative

3. http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/plagiarism-unethical-7240.html

4. https://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/94jie.html

5.

https://opentextbc.ca/ethicsinlawenforcement/chapter/1-1-the-importance-ofethical-behavior/

6. http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/

7. https://www.uoguelph.ca/graduatestudies/sites/uoguelph.ca.graduatestudies/file
s/Academic%20Integrity%20for%20Graduate%20Students_021414_0.pdf)

8. http://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/preventing-plagiarism/

9. http://en.writecheck.com/ways-to-avoid-plagiarism/

10. http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page342057

11. https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_plagiarism.html