Today as I was working on my students’ writing assignment, I found out several writings that were quite good. As I was curious on how they made it, I checked some phrases on their writing throughout the internet by typing several keywords in Google search engine, and I was dazed that their writing was exactly the same as contents from some blogs and websites. I felt really annoyed and sad at the same time since the students were still in high school, what would happen in the future then if this continues? I was wondering….
I think there are several reasons why plagiarism happens. One of them is lack of self confidence. When someone doesn’t have to courage or confidence to do something, they tend to step back, defense their self with whatever needed to make themselves feel save. The other thing that makes people do plagiarism is because of lack of knowledge. It’s clear that when we don’t have knowledge of something we will feel inferior and to overcome that people will just take everything they find then claim it as theirs.
Plagiarism happens mostly in educational institutions. Start from High schools even up to university both students and teachers/ lectures do plagiarism. It happens could be because they don’t put the real resources because they forget or they in the first place have the willingness to do so. Recent plagiarism happened in one of Islamic University in Jakarta that one of the lecture claimed his student mini thesis research as his then published it. Now the case is being treated in the high court.
Realize it or not, the effect of plagiarism is big. If these people who do plagiarism then become public officer, the systemic destroy is waiting for this country. Let’s start from now on, start from ourselves to try hard to become creative and not to do plagiarism. As Mahatma Gandhi said, Be the Change You Want to See in the World.
