An investiagtion into the state of plagiarism in writing assignments among third year students majored in English in one of Vietnamese University and some preventive teaching strategies

• Main Author: Hoàng, Thị Hồng
• Other Authors: Phạm, Thị Thanh Thùy
• Published: ĐHNN 2017
• Subjects: Tiếng Anh; viết tiểu luận; tình trạng đạo văn
• Online Access: http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/41100
• Institution: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

This article explores the issue of plagiarism from the perspective of students studying in Vietnamese Universities. The study was designed to investigate students’ awareness regarding plagiarism. The writer also attempted to measure the state of plagiarism among university students in terms of the forms and the seriousness of plagiarism . She then wanted to identify some preventive teaching strategies to improve academic practice (including academic writing and referencing skills) based on the results gained . To some extents, findings from the study indicate that the students had inadequate understanding about plagi arism definition and its notion, plagiarism policies , and penalty for acts of plagiarism. Therefore, they had committed most of common forms of plagiarism : using paraphrased, summarized, quoted texts without showing the original sources, inventing biblography or data, and submitting online papers and handing as their owns. Level of seriosness of plagiarism acts was varying from copying some key words, sentences to entire of their assignments. The most serious case was that some students submitted an online work and handed in as their own. The number of this case is not high; still it is also an alarm to educators. However, most of students were unintentional plag iarists due to objective causes like their unawareness of plagiarism, lack of proof reading , poor writing academic skills and carelessness when taking an assignment. Some others committed plagiarism intentionally because of some subjective causes like the ir laziness, bad time management, desire of higher grades, pressure from family and friends. Nevertheless, the problem of plagiarism should not fall on the shoulders of the students alone. The instructor should take responsibility for neither checking for plagiarism nor teaching about ethics, which is one course rarely offered in universities. The solution would be resolved from the top, teachers should be a good model of plagiarism fighters. In this minor thesis, the researcher would like to offer some preventive teaching strategies against plagiarism.