Ethical Plagiarism in the UK: A Case Study

The novel written by Laura was found to be a plagiarized version of another writer's work, with the only changes being the character names and the addition of M/M scenes. This unethical act has led to Laura's reputation being tarnished and her book being removed from sale. The incident highlights the need for stronger measures to prevent plagiarism, including the use of software such as Turnitin. The government should also consider implementing laws that punish plagiarists and impose penalties on institutions that fail to detect and address plagiarism cases.

Executive Summary
Plagiarism has significant importance in the world of academic writings and the others. In this
paper, three different plagiarism cases of UK discussed to develop significant understanding
about the plagiarism. It is considered as an unethical act which deserves strict punishment and
heavy penalty. The plagiarism cases in this paper collected by using different news channel such
as BBC. After collecting the deserving cases, they are analyzed in the lights of current scenarios.
On the basis of such analysis, various personal views are provided to resolve such kind of
problem for forever. On the other hand, the importance of Turnitin in avoiding plagiarism
problem is also discussed.
Introduction
Plagiarism is considered as the wrongful appropriation. In it, one author stole ideas, expressions,
thoughts and languages of other and represented them as own original work. In this paper, we
will discuss three plagiarism cases of UK and critically analyze them. This will be helpful in
measuring the unethical behavior of students or universities, on the basis of which penalties and
punishments can impose them (Sheppard, 2015). This helps the government and institutions in
preventing plagiarism in universities as well as real life also. It is considered academic
dishonesty and a breach of predetermined journalistic rules and regulations. It is subject to
sanctions such as suspension, expulsion, and penalties. Recently, in UK lots of plagiarism cases
comes in front of public. This shows the dishonesty and working with students as well as
universities (Riehmann, 2015). Recently, different plagiarism cases have been identified in the
UK which significantly reduces its image in the eyes of students as well as parents.
1

Case 1
The first plagiarism case is a case of German minister who has resigned after copying big part of
his doctoral thesis. It is a case of UK. In this, a German defense minister copied huge part of his
doctoral thesis 2006 (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12613617). After found that situation,
the University of Bayreuth decided Karl-Theodor Zu Guttenberg had lifted whole sections
without any attribution. It is not sufficient; the university should come up with a strict
punishment and penalty which teach a lesson to every student. The case of plagiarism is
considered high profile cases, but in the world of publishing and academia, the plagiarism
problem has been a big issue for many years. All these happen due to large popularity of internet
which offers unparalleled and duplicate opportunities to students as well as scholars. To prevent
such type of unethical acts UK institutions takes various steps such as Turnitin. More than 98%
educational institutions use this software to check the plagiarism content of the students and
scholars (Ramírez-de-la-Cruz, 2014). This is necessary to prevent for the educational institution
because of overall future and reputation of institutions linked to it. Most plagiarism cases rise
due to the popularity of internet because Google provides students large access to a greater
library of texts. This ultimately brings in front such type of situations.
Case 2
The second plagiarism case is a famous person Enrique Pena Nieto who plagiarized his thesis for
law degree during August 2016. Academics group conclude that 29 % material of his paper was
plagiarized and 20 paragraphs copied word to word from a particular book
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/22/mexico-president-enrique-pena-nieto-
plagiarized-thesis-law-degree). This case brings in front of public by the investigation report of a
2

local new outlet. He used a book written by former president Miguel de la Madrid without any
bibliography and citation in his report. On the other hand, one spokesman of the president said
that the president had completed all requirements for his law degree and downplayed the
relevance of "style errors" in his work. He wrote the thesis with the title name of Mexican
Presidential which submitted in Panamerican University (Yahaghi, 2016). He should receive a
strict punishment for his unethical work. This will destroy the overall education system of the
country. The government should do justice with the other students who work hard in performing
their thesis. It can be said that if celebrities of the country do such type of acts than one they
taught to citizens of the country (McMillan, 2013). Punishment and the high penalty should
impose by the government to such person who is doing such an unethical act. After doing this,
plagiarism cases can minimize in the UK.
Case 3
The other plagiarism case is about prolific romantic fiction who is a fiction writer. The novel
wrote by Laura Harner withdrew from the sale. It is because the novel written by the writer is
copied completely. He copied every single word of his novel
(https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/28/prolific-romantic-fiction-writer-exposed-as-a-
plagiarist). Due to it, the best novel seller of UK out it from the sale. Laura is known as a famous
self-published romantic fiction novelist who currently proved a plagiarist. The case comes in
front of public when a reader explains on the spot that she had switched the gender in a tale of
romantic suspense to turn it into a love story of gay. The best-selling firm was alerted by the
reader about the similarities between her own novel known as the My Kind of Trouble and the
novel written by the Laura (Murray, 2015). After happen such incident, the editor of the book
immediately reviewed both books and identified the similarities between them. The editor found
3

that book written by Laura was almost a word-for-word and scene-for-scene duplication of the
reader book. She only changes the character names and inserted some M/M scenes. Only one
thing that she is not included in her book was the epilogue which could not transmit in M/M
scene. Thus, it can be said that the act performing by the novel writer is highly unethical and she
deserves penalty and punishment as per prescribed laws (Pearce, 2015).
Conclusion
After studying all the three cases, it can be said that the UK is suffering more with the plagiarism
problem. Turnitin will prove good software in preventing such type of problems (Carroll, 2016).
The government of the country should make a law regarding punishment and penalties that
perform such type of unethical act. On the other hand, top executives of the universities and
institutions should also take membership of Turnitin to detect the plagiarism. This will be helpful
in preventing plagiarism cases among the students. They learn to work hard and give their best.
On the other hand, if the institutions detect any plagiarism case in the student documents they
should impose a penalty so that they don't revise this thing further in their near future. This will
save overall reputation and result of the institutions (Nishitani, 2016). Thus, it can be said that
plagiarism is an unethical act and it should prevent by taking appropriate actions.
4

References
BBC News. (n.d.). Plagiarism: The Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V boom - BBC News. [online] Available at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12613617.
the Guardian. (n.d.). Mexico president Enrique Peña Nieto plagiarized thesis for law degree:
report. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/22/mexico-
president-enrique-pena-nieto-plagiarized-thesis-law-degree.
Flood, A. (n.d.). Prolific romantic fiction writer exposed as a plagiarist. [online] the Guardian.
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/28/prolific-romantic-fiction-writer-
exposed-as-a-plagiarist.
Sheppard, S.S., 2015. Handling of recent plagiarism in JER. Journal of environmental
radioactivity.
Ramírez-de-la-Cruz, A., Ramírez-de-la-Rosa, G., Sánchez-Sánchez, C. and Jiménez-Salazar, H.,
2014, December. On the Importance of Lexicon, Structure and Style for Identifying Source Code
Plagiarism. In Proceedings of the Forum for Information Retrieval Evaluation (pp. 31-38).
ACM.
Yahaghi, J., Beddu, S.B. and Muda, Z.C., 2016. Plagiarism in Publications Using the
Unpublished Raw Data of Archived Research. Science and Engineering Ethics, pp.1-2.
McMillan, K. and Weyers, J., 2013. How to Cite, Reference & Avoid Plagiarism at University.
Pearson Higher Ed.
5

Murray, S.L., Henslee, A.M. and Ludlow, D.K., 2015. Engineering Students' Understanding of
Plagiarism. In Proceedings of the 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition (2015,
Seattle, WA).
Pearce, R., 2015. Date: 12 December 2015 I (named above) declare that this assignment is my
own work and that I have correctly acknowledged the work of others. This assignment is in
accordance with University and School guidance on good academic conduct (and how to avoid
plagiarism and other assessment irregularities).
Carroll, J., 2016. Making Decisions on Management of Plagiarism Cases Where There Is a
Deliberate Attempt to Cheat. Handbook of Academic Integrity, pp.199-219.
Nishitani, K., 2016. A Comparative Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Initiation of
Integrated Reporting Practices in Japanese and UK Listed Companies: The View of Voluntary
Disclosure Theory or Legitimacy Theory? (No. DP2016-07).
Riehmann, P., Potthast, M., Stein, B. and Froehlich, B., 2015, June. Visual assessment of alleged
plagiarism cases. In Computer Graphics Forum (Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 61-70).
6