The theme of my essay is ‘do not plagiarize’ so I’ll deal with questions of student’s plagiarism: what is it in general? Why do students plagiarize? Why is it harmful for them? How can it be prevented? What is the legal side of the issue? First of all, what is plagiarism? There are a lot of definitions of the word "Plagiarism”, it comes from Latin "plagiarius” and means "kidnapping”. I think that it is logical, because ideas are growing up in our brain like a child so the issues can be compared. The Oxford dictionary gives us such a definition "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own”. In the Cambridge dictionary we can find "to use another person's idea or a part of their work and pretend that it is your own”. In the Russian Ozhegov dictionary it sounds like "Wrongful appropriation of another person’s work or its publication under another name”. We see that there is something in common in all the definitions: you plagiarize only when you pass another author’s ideas as your own. Does it mean that using the ideas of another person is prohibited? Of course, it doesn’t! But we should use quotations and references to the original. Sometimes, it is difficult to expose a student as a plagiarist. And as a teacher-to-be, we must know how to prevent such cases at school. Technologies are developing, books with ready-made essays are published so there are a lot of temptations for pupils which are not easy to resist. 15 years ago it was more difficult to plagiarize. Students went to the library, spent hours to find something suitable, then they copied the material if there was any and so on. Now, we just type the theme of our essay and a great amount of information is at our disposal. Many students make full use of these opportunities. I think laziness isn’t the only reason why they do it. Sometimes, they are just afraid of expressing their own thoughts or can’t find right words for it. It happens because of a lack of experience in oral speech either at school or at home. Sometimes, they are afraid of being ridiculed or misunderstood or they just have nothing to say about the matter – it happens when the theme is not interesting for them, or they are not adult enough for the discussion. So, my task (as a teacher) will be to prepare them for writing an essay or compositions. The preparation must include the following: to conduct a discussion on the theme we are interested in, to provide the pupils with all necessary knowledge to participate in the discussion, try to ask the opinion of everyone. The theme must be well-formulated, clear for everybody and provocative. And the most important thing is to explain that they can and should use different resources, but following certain rules: all the materials used must be put in inverted commas and the original must be mentioned. There is also a problem with stealing ideas. A pupil may say that he/she just thinks in the same way. It may really seem so, but he/she must try to ask himself/herself whether he/ she had the same way of thinking before reading some article or after. Sometimes, students say something like "Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to put quotes”. It is unacceptable and must be prevented before giving the work to the teacher. It is also useful to use references and bibliography (a list of the sources) at the end of an essay. Unfortunately, we have no culture of writing in our country. Not all teachers even know how to use the computer and the Internet. But there are a number of special programs and on-line services that help to "struggle for justice”, for example: www.antiplagiat.ru, www.plagiarism.org. As far as I know, when a student of some European country plagiarizes, the offence may be very strict, such as cancellation of mark or course or even expulsion. In our country we don’t have such practices. I think that it comes from school, from the very beginning. And the solution to the problem must also be started there. When a pupil plagiarizes from the very beginning of his/her studies, his/her brain stops developing. It is necessary to explain to children that they must generate their own ideas, if they don’t learn how to do it, it will be difficult for them to work and communicate in the future. Moreover, using a wrong source may lead to misunderstanding or a wrong interpretation of the material. As the technologies are developing, I have conducted a small research on the issue. Here are the results. There were 26 participants – students of different universities and specialities. This small research shows us that the main reason for plagiarism among studenta is an uninteresting topic. Moreover, they are eager to discuss some urgent problems either during a lesson or as an essay. Of course, there are too few participants to make some conclusions, but for me it was a real discovery! Speaking about the legal side of an issue, it should be noticed that there is no special law concerning plagiarism. Usually, plagiarism is publication of ideas of another person under one’s own name. But it is a very doubtful question whose ideas are published, because experts aren’t always objective. In the Russian legislation the term piracy also exists – illegal copying and using the work or ideas of another author. By the way, there are some laws regulating the relations in the sphere of intellectual property: Civil code of the Russian Federation (part 4, clause 1302), Code of administrative violations (clause 7.12), and Penal code of the Russian Federation (clause 145). But there is a great number of different loopholes (especially in our country). So, if an ordinary person has legal proceedings with a big publishing house, it’s quite clear who will win. To sum it up, I want to say that all ready-made material from the Internet or from somewhere else does us a bad turn. When we graduate from the university, we’ll participate in many interviews where our prospective employer won’t check our diploma. He/she will appreciate our abilities to formulate our own thoughts, to make conclusions, to find ways out. And the most expensive thing we will have in our life is our intellectual property.
