ll the professors have a no-plagiarism policy. But every institute and its professors deal with plagiarism differently. So, students often wonder about the severe consequences of plagiarism in education. And if you are one of those, we’ve got you covered here.

Here, we’ll first explain the concept of plagiarism with respect to education. Then, we’ll discuss the five significant consequences of plagiarism in education. And lastly, we’ll share some tips and tricks to avoid plagiarism for students. So, without any further delay, let’s delve in.

What Is Educational Plagiarism?

Plagiarism occurs when you intentionally or unintentionally copy the work from existing sources without properly acknowledging those sources. It can happen in all writing fields. But when plagiarism is related to the academic field, it is known as educational plagiarism.

Consequences of Plagiarism for Students:

Plagiarism, whether it is intentional or unintentional, has the same effects. But let’s discuss the most severe consequences of plagiarism in education.

• Additional Tasks:

Generally, institutes do not allow students to clear their names from the ‘plagiarism’ tag. But whenever institutes provide an opportunity for students to separate themselves from the ‘plagiarism’ tag, they do it based on heavy punishments. One form of heavy punishment is assigning additional tasks.

As an additional task, institutes can ask you to write an essay of 5000-6000 words on the ‘consequences of plagiarism’ with proper source acknowledgment. This way, you will understand the impacts of plagiarism and the appropriate method of acknowledging the sources.

• Bad Academic Repute:

Figure 1: This image is taken from https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-troubled-woman-using-laptop-at-home-3755755/

A bad academic reputation is one of the most severe consequences of educational plagiarism. However, a bad academic reputation can occur in several forms. So, let’s look at the most common instances of a bad reputation in the field of education:

• Instructors award the students with a failing grade after finding traces of plagiarism in their work. So, it is the most common instance of a bad student’s reputation.
• Some institutes do not let students attend the final exam of the term who have plagiarized their material.
• Some institutes revoke the degree of students who have fallen prey to plagiarism in their work.
• Loss of Sponsor’s Financial Support:

Figure 2: This picture is taken from https://www.pexels.com/photo/businessman-negotiating-over-phone-offering-cash-and-refusing-offer-5849578/

Every student cannot afford the expenses of education. So, they look for financial support in the form of sponsors. But if such a student falls prey to plagiarism in his work, institutes can send official warnings to that student and his sponsor. So, the sponsor of that student can terminate the financial support and that student’s effort in writing a scholarship essay will go in vain.

• Hearing Against a Committee:

Figure 3: This image is taken from https://www.pexels.com/photo/group-of-people-sitting-on-brown-wooden-bench-8730276/

As we’ve already discussed, different institutes deal with plagiarism differently. So, some institutes present the plagiarism guilty students against a committee. The committee officials ask different questions to guilty students. For instance, they can ask:

• Why have you plagiarized in your work?
• How have you plagiarized your work?
• Have you understood your mistake?

Additionally, institutes can tag plagiarism guilty students with the term ‘dishonest.’ So, nobody wants to be confronted by offensive questions and the ‘dishonest’ tag alongside your name. Therefore, it is best to avoid plagiarism.

• Expulsion From Institute:

Figure 4: This GIF is taken from https://media.giphy.com/media/xT5LMM1GbqzoT1qqrK/giphy.gif

Most institutes have a policy of expelling the students after finding multiple claims of plagiarism from the same candidate. This consequence is the most severe impact of plagiarism in the educational field. That’s because expelled students find it challenging to get admission to other institutes due to bad academic records.

How to Avoid Plagiarism?

So far, you may have understood the consequences of plagiarism. But now, it’s time to discuss how you can perform preemptive strikes and avoid the consequences of plagiarism.

But at first, it is essential to detect traces of plagiarism in your work before removing them. And for that, you can take assistance from plagiarism checker free or paid tools.

A plagiarism checker free works on advanced Artificial Intelligence and deep-searching algorithms. 

This way, such tools can instantly compare the entered text against billions of published web pages, archived theses and online repositories. 

• Paraphrase and Rewrite the Plagiarized Portions:

When it comes to removing plagiarism, the go-to technique of most people is paraphrasing or rewriting.

Paraphrasing is a type of rewriting where a writer rewrites an existing idea without modifying its theme. But you can only eradicate plagiarism through paraphrasing if you know how to paraphrase the material. Therefore, try the following approaches to rephrase plagiarized material:

Some Paraphrasing Tips:

• Understanding the original idea’s intent and meaning is essential before trying to rewrite it in your words. Therefore, before paraphrasing something, you should read the original material thoroughly. 
• Once you have gathered the theme of the original material, you can rewrite it with the help of different approaches. But while rewriting, you shouldn’t modify its theme. Some common rewriting approaches are:
  • Changing the sentence structure.
  • Replacing some specific words with their relevant synonyms through a thesaurus.
  • Trying a unique initial point for a paragraph.
• After rewriting the plagiarized portions, you should reference their sources because rewriting something in your words doesn’t make you its original owner.
• Cite the Sources:

Some materials are hard to rewrite. In fact, rewriting some things modifies their meaning. So, you can take assistance from double quotes and source citations in such a situation.

When you enclose the words in double quotes and include them in your work, the instructors and plagiarism detectors will automatically know that you have taken this information from an existing source. Therefore, like paraphrasing, you must cite the source after enclosing the information in double-quotes.

Conclusion:

When instructors find that a student plagiarized from the Internet or perhaps put together a written piece without crediting its authors, they get amused and frustrated. So, they often try to warn their students about plagiarism, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. As a result, students have to face severe plagiarism consequences.

The consequences of plagiarism may differ from institute to institute. But plagiarism can ruin your reputation, irrespective of your field of interest. So, read the above discussion to understand how plagiarism can impact the lives of those who commit plagiarism.