Copy, Paste, Enter - Thailand’s Plagiarism Problem

[pinkpanther99]

I think anyone who has ever taught in Thailand can relate to this article.

Well worth a read in my opinion. Wasn’t sure if I can post the article in full or not? Anyway, there’s a link at the bottom

Copy, Paste, Enter - Thailand’s Plagiarism Problem

For the past two years, I have served as a judge for the Northern Thailand section of the Junior Dublin Literary Awards, an international essay contest for high school students. I am typically informed of this honour by arriving one day at work to find a five-inch stack of print-outs on my desk that I must read and judge in the span of a day or two.

This can be rather daunting when you’re on deadline and have to edit and post five news stories before lunch, but I cannot say the task does not bring me some joy. Here’s to you, imaginative physics-hating kid who wrote, “Hail to the durian that smashed Sir Isaac Newton’s head!” And to you, sweet young visionary, who assured us all: “If you wore a panda mask, you will become a panda. If you wore an elephant mask, you will become a elephant. If you wore a horse mask, you will become a horse. If you wore a Selah Moon mask, you will become the Selah Moon.”

But Selah Moon aside, the experience has also given me a rather disturbing glimpse into the current state of Thailand’s education system. And folks, it is bleak.

Link: http://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/citylife-articles/copy-paste-enter-thailands-plagiarism-problem/

[masuk]

I can't help but wonder how the plagiarists get on defending their thesis. After all, this is done before one's peers and academic staff, so if they've been friends of Google, how would they get on in front of a live audience?

Or maybe they don't do this in Thailand??

[Jimdandy]

Plagiarism is a very serious problem. It happens among college and preparatory program students as well. There a service called 'SafeAssign' which I have used only to find that in some cases 100% plagiarism. The internet is a double edged sword when it comes to teaching these days.

I do not know what the solution is but I can say you are not alone and this is a global issue.

Sad but true, gone are the days of thinking; to a certain degree...

[Fullstop]

Copy, Paste, Enter

There's no need to click Enter after clicking Paste.

[kaorop]

probably just meant "save"

[mike324]

When I was in college couple years ago, we had to submit our work electronically and they were automatically scanned for plagiarism. How often the professor scans them I don't know, but I do know they do it once in a while and the tool is there for them to use.

[thejcb]

Thais resort to plagiarism because generally they have no ideas of their own but would NEVER admit it (probably don't even realise it in themselves).

Subliminally they resort to a this surreptitious way of copying of other peoples work (again probably not recognising they are doing this).

[mikiea]

dung beetles, yep thats da ticket, dung beetles :-)

[Suradit69]

Thais resort to plagiarism because generally they have no ideas of their own but would NEVER admit it (probably don't even realise it in themselves).

Subliminally they resort to a this surreptitious way of copying of other peoples work (again probably not recognising they are doing this).

"Thais resort to plagiarism ..."

Another farang social critic living in a bubble. Plagiarism has existed in the western world forever and is only that much worse since the advent of the Internet. Just gratuitous Thai bashing.

"because generally they have no ideas of their own"

Please do append a list of the original work you've had published so we can be suitably impressed.

Apparently some people who have ideas of their own still resort to plagiarism and they're not even Thai.

[Docno]

Nothing new about this and nothing specific to Thailand. Some years ago, I taught a Master's level class at one of the top universities in Asia. The students were actually working managers seeking a professional Masters-level degree. I was grading a written assignment and came across two papers that had identical phrasing in some paragraphs. I then ran all the papers through TurnItIn, which was new on the scene and offering a free promotion of its service (which my former university now has a license for). It identified yet a third paper that had the same material. I invited the three students to my office to share my findings, and to my surprise, they argued back saying that they had done no 'wrong' because they had independently copied the material from a web-site which they considered to be public domain. I then proceeded to explain the meaning of plagiarism and the necessity of citing one's sources. Remember - these were working adults in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. They weren't too happy when they were assigned a new paper. And I'm not convinced they learned their lesson.

[Jimdandy]

I have had students tell me that they did copy and paste and here are two real reasons why they say they did it. One student was from a very wealthy family who had what is know as 'Wasta' in the Middle East-related to the royal family by blood. As such, no matter what he does, all he as to do is just show up and the administration will pass him so they do not drop out of favor with the prince of the region I work in. Hence he saw no problem with just copying and pasting because he would never have to worry about learning anything anyway. Filthy rich, as in tens of millions with an s.

The other student was convinced I would never read all of the students papers in the class because as he saw it I would not get to his paper, but rather I would give him a passing grade because he turned in an essay. Mind you I only had 16 students.

At the beginning of every semester I tell them the story of Karl-Theodor zu Gettenberg, former German Defence Minisiter (From 28 October 2009, Guttenberg served as Minister of Defence of Germany. After the discovery of plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation and the decision of the University of Bayreuth to revoke his doctorate, Guttenberg resigned from all political posts in March 2011.) source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg

That STILL is not enough to get their attention. We even use this clip as an exercise in Main Idea, Gist and details, but students still plagiarize.

Not sure what came first, the idea that if nobody catches me I am getting away with something or if I can convince someone I am the original author they will believe me.

Now I give a zero, period, no do over, no discussion. It has reduced the frequency but it has not eliminated the problem.

[cooked]

So that's why you see kilometres of road side sellers selling ONLY melons. And then ONLY basketware. And so on.

[nithisa78]

Thais resort to plagiarism because generally they have no ideas of their own but would NEVER admit it (probably don't even realise it in themselves).

Subliminally they resort to a this surreptitious way of copying of other peoples work (again probably not recognising they are doing this).

"Thais resort to plagiarism ..."

Another farang social critic living in a bubble. Plagiarism has existed in the western world forever and is only that much worse since the advent of the Internet. Just gratuitous Thai bashing.

"because generally they have no ideas of their own"

Please do append a list of the original work you've had published so we can be suitably impressed.

Apparently some people who have ideas of their own still resort to plagiarism and they're not even Thai.

Yes and this is just the very short list.

[smotherb]

When I was in college couple years ago, we had to submit our work electronically and they were automatically scanned for plagiarism. How often the professor scans them I don't know, but I do know they do it once in a while and the tool is there for them to use.

The problem with plagiarism is not Thailand's alone. It happens all the time in the Western world too. There are many originality-checker programs for use in academia. Plagiarism seems to have become rampant recently, but I'll bet there were large numbers of unnoticed plagiarism in the past when it was not so easy to catch without digital media--but you have to remember, it is not so easy to copy large passages of others' words without digital media either.

I have taught in three universities and each had its plagiarism software. However, all three had to enact leniency policies with caveats as to how many times the student was caught cheating, how egregious the offense was, whether or not the student cited anything--many students will cite a source which has nothing to do with the passage in an attempt to say, "I cited it, but just made a mistake"--and whether or not the student at least tried to paraphrase--some students change only a word once in a while and claim they think they have paraphrased.

Specific problems in enforcing plagiarism punishment must address how well the student cited, quoted, or tried to paraphrase the material. Students will claim they simply forgot to properly quote the material, or the citation was inadvertently dropped from the reference list, or they had simply forgotten where they found the material and thought they wrote it themselves--this last one is particularly amusing since the majority of students I have seen using this excuse are the worst writers and could hardly write a simple sentence without major mistakes, but now claim to think they actually wrote this well-written passage.

In short, it appears we have created a world of liars, cheats, and thieves; who think they are above the rules and regulations and should be entitled to circumvent reality.

[Jimdandy]

Agreed. Point well taken with regard to paraphrasing. One strategy our university has implemented that reduces the problem even further is sending the student to the director's office and asking them to write another paper right there on the spot. If they can duplicate the same level of proficiency as in the paper in question then there a discussion around whether the student made a mistake and also about how is it that the software was able to report so many sources beyond the expected phrases such as introductions and concluding statements, etc.

Pandora is out of the box and morphing into a very scary animal. Most recently the medical profession in one of the gulf states began an investigation into medical practitioners who claimed to have medical degrees when in fact a significant number only hold degrees in hard sciences. Scary.

[Shaunduhpostman]

Agreed that plagiarism is universal and has become more of a problem everywhere. But the point is that if Thailand is looking to change the tendency to plagiarism, the main problem isn't that plagiarism happens so much but that it is accepted widely in the education system.

In my experience as a teacher here I would say that the article's assessment is fully accurate and that nothing has changed in 10 years, it is a full on accepted learning strategy and integral to the system that relies on guaranteed passes and certificates and degrees for all students who pay regardless of the quality of their work or effort. During my "teaching" career at Matayom and University levels over the years I heard a number of times from Thai educators that by copying a student receives some input and by transferring the input elsewhere some bit of information may be retained. Most conceded that not much would be retained, but not nothing at all over the years copying and getting answers from someone else, so that it isn't really so bad. I had to agree that while I had never thought of it that way, never thought that you might learn a little bit that way, but of course it is obviously not a terribly efficient strategy.

That said the problem isn't new, and to be honest it is tedious reading year after year the hand wringing and oh we have a new program to turn the whole problem around in 6 months, nationwide, the Education Minister or whoever it is has ordered school officials. You feel like a mug listening to any of it. Thailand doesn't want to improve their education system, just manage the perception of it.

The sad thing is, I think it boils down to the fact that there are smart and educated people who don't want the majority of Thai people to be educated so that they are easier to manage and not a threat to their empires. It's just one of the many things in place to make sure they aren't educated, and it is not going to change any time soon because there is little to no will that things be any different. Too many Thais feel happy with the way things are, even now. I would bet it is of little to no consequence to 99 percent of Thai people whether or not rampant plagiarism goes on in the schools or even in the corporate and business and academic worlds. Many know full well that foreigners disapprove of it and if they come to teach here and discover what goes on and become outraged and complain and hoot and get indignant or even go so far as to write articles about the problem, they will also eventually discover numerous songs and dances in the media about Thailand now getting tough on corruption in education or so-and so's new student centered learning campaign and that will calm them down enough until they leave the country for good and forget about it and allow Thailand to carry on and do its own thing as ultimately ruinous as it will eventually, if not already, prove to be.

My first encounter with plagiarism/cheating as an accepted practice was back in the 90's. It was my first term as the Mattayom foreign English teacher at a fairly well to do but not too fancy private school in Bangkok. They wanted me to administer the school's final English exams, which were the usual horrific error laden, three correct answers, no correct answers multiple choice tests which we still have today after lots of hand wringing about that in newspapers etc. I was informed by the head teacher that my job was to hand out the tests, make sure there was order in the room etc., and most importantly be sensitive to students who were struggling and discretely give them the correct answers if they indicated that indeed the distarught looks on their faces were due to the fact that they couldn't answer the questions. I was new to Thailand so I was pretty shocked, a bit indignant and annoyed too actually and I said I would do no such thing, if they didn't know the answer that was fine, why have school exams if you are just going to give people the answers? Not that it mattered, everyone passes anyway, something I didn't know then either.

Someone asked in this thead on a post above, if you get so far as the Phd level, what then? Don't you have to take oral exams before a commitee on your "work?" The answer to that is that there are even services, a few thousand dollars, and you can pay someone to do your research, write your thesis, and if there is a thesis board to answer to, you will be coached and given things to say so that you come off like you did your Phd work yourself. So it doesn't matter one whit. You get your professional degree and life goes on with convenient easy cheat-o-matic Phd research services. That said, I'd bet you have something like that in almost every American college town these days. But I didn't cheat, no sirree Bob, and look where I am today, sweating it out in a cabin up in Isaan, success story of the century!

Edited April 20, 2015 by Shaunduhpostman

[pkspeaker]

..but i wonder if the internet really makes plagerism 'easier', when I was in high school and college there was no internet, but you could go to the library and pull sources, and then 'almost' copy directly from the source, and then even cite the source in the bibliography, but of cource the teacher isn't going to go rummaging thru the library to find the thing you copied from, so it would pass.. but now with google and turnitin its much easier for the teacher to police the work.. as it is easier for the student to cut and paste..everything is just faster now..

I don't think this type of cheating really matters because the teacher should also be assigning written tests, where the students are forced to prove that they can write by taking sa tests instead of just multiple choice.. If theres a huge difference between a students sa answers and the term paper they turned in, then the teacher needs to take a closer look.. The main thing is that the students must demonstrate an ability to write paragraphs with pretty good grammar and punctuation. You can't use plagiarism in the hard classes like math.

[pkspeaker]

wait a second.. i just ran this thru turnitin.. This report was posted on a similar thread about plagerism in 1997! by someone called Shaunduhpoliceman!!

Agreed that plagiarism is universal and has become more of a problem everywhere. But the point is that if Thailand is looking to change the tendency to plagiarism, the main problem isn't that plagiarism happens so much but that it is accepted widely in the education system.

In my experience as a teacher here I would say that the article's assessment is fully accurate and that nothing has changed in 10 years, it is a full on accepted learning strategy and integral to the system that relies on guaranteed passes and certificates and degrees for all students who pay regardless of the quality of their work or effort. During my "teaching" career at Matayom and University levels over the years I heard a number of times from Thai educators that by copying a student receives some input and by transferring the input elsewhere some bit of information may be retained. Most conceded that not much would be retained, but not nothing at all over the years copying and getting answers from someone else, so that it isn't really so bad. I had to agree that while I had never thought of it that way, never thought that you might learn a little bit that way, but of course it is obviously not a terribly efficient strategy.

That said the problem isn't new, and to be honest it is tedious reading year after year the hand wringing and oh we have a new program to turn the whole problem around in 6 months, nationwide, the Education Minister or whoever it is has ordered school officials. You feel like a mug listening to any of it. Thailand doesn't want to improve their education system, just manage the perception of it.

The sad thing is, I think it boils down to the fact that there are smart and educated people who don't want the majority of Thai people to be educated so that they are easier to manage and not a threat to their empires. It's just one of the many things in place to make sure they aren't educated, and it is not going to change any time soon because there is little to no will that things be any different. Too many Thais feel happy with the way things are, even now. I would bet it is of little to no consequence to 99 percent of Thai people whether or not rampant plagiarism goes on in the schools or even in the corporate and business and academic worlds. Many know full well that foreigners disapprove of it and if they come to teach here and discover what goes on and become outraged and complain and hoot and get indignant or even go so far as to write articles about the problem, they will also eventually discover numerous songs and dances in the media about Thailand now getting tough on corruption in education or so-and so's new student centered learning campaign and that will calm them down enough until they leave the country for good and forget about it and allow Thailand to carry on and do its own thing as ultimately ruinous as it will eventually, if not already, prove to be.

My first encounter with plagiarism/cheating as an accepted practice was back in the 90's. It was my first term as the Mattayom foreign English teacher at a fairly well to do but not too fancy private school in Bangkok. They wanted me to administer the school's final English exams, which were the usual horrific error laden, three correct answers, no correct answers multiple choice tests which we still have today after lots of hand wringing about that in newspapers etc. I was informed by the head teacher that my job was to hand out the tests, make sure there was order in the room etc., and most importantly be sensitive to students who were struggling and discretely give them the correct answers if they indicated that indeed the distarught looks on their faces were due to the fact that they couldn't answer the questions. I was new to Thailand so I was pretty shocked, a bit indignant and annoyed too actually and I said I would do no such thing, if they didn't know the answer that was fine, why have school exams if you are just going to give people the answers? Not that it mattered, everyone passes anyway, something I didn't know then either.

Someone asked in this thead on a post above, if you get so far as the Phd level, what then? Don't you have to take oral exams before a commitee on your "work?" The answer to that is that there are even services, a few thousand dollars, and you can pay someone to do your research, write your thesis, and if there is a thesis board to answer to, you will be coached and given things to say so that you come off like you did your Phd work yourself. So it doesn't matter one whit. You get your professional degree and life goes on with convenient easy cheat-o-matic Phd research services. That said, I'd bet you have something like that in almost every American college town these days. But I didn't cheat, no sirree Bob, and look where I am today, sweating it out in a cabin up in Isaan, success story of the century!

[pkspeaker]

whop, this one too..it turns out that 90% of TV posts are actually plagerised ..

I have had students tell me that they did copy and paste and here are two real reasons why they say they did it. One student was from a very wealthy family who had what is know as 'Wasta' in the Middle East-related to the royal family by blood. As such, no matter what he does, all he as to do is just show up and the administration will pass him so they do not drop out of favor with the prince of the region I work in. Hence he saw no problem with just copying and pasting because he would never have to worry about learning anything anyway. Filthy rich, as in tens of millions with an s.

The other student was convinced I would never read all of the students papers in the class because as he saw it I would not get to his paper, but rather I would give him a passing grade because he turned in an essay. Mind you I only had 16 students.

At the beginning of every semester I tell them the story of Karl-Theodor zu Gettenberg, former German Defence Minisiter (From 28 October 2009, Guttenberg served as Minister of Defence of Germany. After the discovery of plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation and the decision of the University of Bayreuth to revoke his doctorate, Guttenberg resigned from all political posts in March 2011.) source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg

That STILL is not enough to get their attention. We even use this clip as an exercise in Main Idea, Gist and details, but students still plagiarize.

Not sure what came first, the idea that if nobody catches me I am getting away with something or if I can convince someone I am the original author they will believe me.

Now I give a zero, period, no do over, no discussion. It has reduced the frequency but it has not eliminated the problem.

[Linzz]

When I was in college couple years ago, we had to submit our work electronically and they were automatically scanned for plagiarism. How often the professor scans them I don't know, but I do know they do it once in a while and the tool is there for them to use.

The problem with plagiarism is not Thailand's alone. It happens all the time in the Western world too. There are many originality-checker programs for use in academia. Plagiarism seems to have become rampant recently, but I'll bet there were large numbers of unnoticed plagiarism in the past when it was not so easy to catch without digital media--but you have to remember, it is not so easy to copy large passages of others' words without digital media either.

I have taught in three universities and each had its plagiarism software. However, all three had to enact leniency policies with caveats as to how many times the student was caught cheating, how egregious the offense was, whether or not the student cited anything--many students will cite a source which has nothing to do with the passage in an attempt to say, "I cited it, but just made a mistake"--and whether or not the student at least tried to paraphrase--some students change only a word once in a while and claim they think they have paraphrased.

Specific problems in enforcing plagiarism punishment must address how well the student cited, quoted, or tried to paraphrase the material. Students will claim they simply forgot to properly quote the material, or the citation was inadvertently dropped from the reference list, or they had simply forgotten where they found the material and thought they wrote it themselves--this last one is particularly amusing since the majority of students I have seen using this excuse are the worst writers and could hardly write a simple sentence without major mistakes, but now claim to think they actually wrote this well-written passage.

In short, it appears we have created a world of liars, cheats, and thieves; who think they are above the rules and regulations and should be entitled to circumvent reality.

All ideas are derivative. The mission is to put it in your own words and if you can't say it better then quote and reference it, as above

[Fullstop]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Thais resort to plagiarism because generally they have no ideas of their own but would NEVER admit it (probably don't even realise it in themselves).

Subliminally they resort to a this surreptitious way of copying of other peoples work (again probably not recognising they are doing this).

I realise it when I walk into a Mall and see 367 phone shops all squeezed together. Or when I drive along the highway and pass 23 roadside stalls all selling the same plastic inflatable kiddie pools.

[smotherb]

Agreed. Point well taken with regard to paraphrasing. One strategy our university has implemented that reduces the problem even further is sending the student to the director's office and asking them to write another paper right there on the spot. If they can duplicate the same level of proficiency as in the paper in question then there a discussion around whether the student made a mistake and also about how is it that the software was able to report so many sources beyond the expected phrases such as introductions and concluding statements, etc.

Pandora is out of the box and morphing into a very scary animal. Most recently the medical profession in one of the gulf states began an investigation into medical practitioners who claimed to have medical degrees when in fact a significant number only hold degrees in hard sciences. Scary.

Only brief papers could be written in that manner, papers in a Master's program are not so easy to write in the Dean's office. Consequently, any re-writing must be followed by plagiarism software comparisons and the student must properly cite or quote the passage, or properly cite and paraphrase the passage.

[smotherb]

Agreed that plagiarism is universal and has become more of a problem everywhere. But the point is that if Thailand is looking to change the tendency to plagiarism, the main problem isn't that plagiarism happens so much but that it is accepted widely in the education system.

In my experience as a teacher here I would say that the article's assessment is fully accurate and that nothing has changed in 10 years, it is a full on accepted learning strategy and integral to the system that relies on guaranteed passes and certificates and degrees for all students who pay regardless of the quality of their work or effort. During my "teaching" career at Matayom and University levels over the years I heard a number of times from Thai educators that by copying a student receives some input and by transferring the input elsewhere some bit of information may be retained. Most conceded that not much would be retained, but not nothing at all over the years copying and getting answers from someone else, so that it isn't really so bad. I had to agree that while I had never thought of it that way, never thought that you might learn a little bit that way, but of course it is obviously not a terribly efficient strategy.

That said the problem isn't new, and to be honest it is tedious reading year after year the hand wringing and oh we have a new program to turn the whole problem around in 6 months, nationwide, the Education Minister or whoever it is has ordered school officials. You feel like a mug listening to any of it. Thailand doesn't want to improve their education system, just manage the perception of it.

The sad thing is, I think it boils down to the fact that there are smart and educated people who don't want the majority of Thai people to be educated so that they are easier to manage and not a threat to their empires. It's just one of the many things in place to make sure they aren't educated, and it is not going to change any time soon because there is little to no will that things be any different. Too many Thais feel happy with the way things are, even now. I would bet it is of little to no consequence to 99 percent of Thai people whether or not rampant plagiarism goes on in the schools or even in the corporate and business and academic worlds. Many know full well that foreigners disapprove of it and if they come to teach here and discover what goes on and become outraged and complain and hoot and get indignant or even go so far as to write articles about the problem, they will also eventually discover numerous songs and dances in the media about Thailand now getting tough on corruption in education or so-and so's new student centered learning campaign and that will calm them down enough until they leave the country for good and forget about it and allow Thailand to carry on and do its own thing as ultimately ruinous as it will eventually, if not already, prove to be.

My first encounter with plagiarism/cheating as an accepted practice was back in the 90's. It was my first term as the Mattayom foreign English teacher at a fairly well to do but not too fancy private school in Bangkok. They wanted me to administer the school's final English exams, which were the usual horrific error laden, three correct answers, no correct answers multiple choice tests which we still have today after lots of hand wringing about that in newspapers etc. I was informed by the head teacher that my job was to hand out the tests, make sure there was order in the room etc., and most importantly be sensitive to students who were struggling and discretely give them the correct answers if they indicated that indeed the distarught looks on their faces were due to the fact that they couldn't answer the questions. I was new to Thailand so I was pretty shocked, a bit indignant and annoyed too actually and I said I would do no such thing, if they didn't know the answer that was fine, why have school exams if you are just going to give people the answers? Not that it mattered, everyone passes anyway, something I didn't know then either.

Someone asked in this thead on a post above, if you get so far as the Phd level, what then? Don't you have to take oral exams before a commitee on your "work?" The answer to that is that there are even services, a few thousand dollars, and you can pay someone to do your research, write your thesis, and if there is a thesis board to answer to, you will be coached and given things to say so that you come off like you did your Phd work yourself. So it doesn't matter one whit. You get your professional degree and life goes on with convenient easy cheat-o-matic Phd research services. That said, I'd bet you have something like that in almost every American college town these days. But I didn't cheat, no sirree Bob, and look where I am today, sweating it out in a cabin up in Isaan, success story of the century!

You are correct, that it will take a major socio-cultural mindset change to eliminate plagiarism and/or social passing. However, I think you may be assuming the Western world is better off than Thailand, when it has its own very similar problems. As long as a school still accepts non-digital papers and does not use plagiarism software, it will be more difficult to monitor and catch plagiarism.

[smotherb]

When I was in college couple years ago, we had to submit our work electronically and they were automatically scanned for plagiarism. How often the professor scans them I don't know, but I do know they do it once in a while and the tool is there for them to use.

The problem with plagiarism is not Thailand's alone. It happens all the time in the Western world too. There are many originality-checker programs for use in academia. Plagiarism seems to have become rampant recently, but I'll bet there were large numbers of unnoticed plagiarism in the past when it was not so easy to catch without digital media--but you have to remember, it is not so easy to copy large passages of others' words without digital media either.

I have taught in three universities and each had its plagiarism software. However, all three had to enact leniency policies with caveats as to how many times the student was caught cheating, how egregious the offense was, whether or not the student cited anything--many students will cite a source which has nothing to do with the passage in an attempt to say, "I cited it, but just made a mistake"--and whether or not the student at least tried to paraphrase--some students change only a word once in a while and claim they think they have paraphrased.

Specific problems in enforcing plagiarism punishment must address how well the student cited, quoted, or tried to paraphrase the material. Students will claim they simply forgot to properly quote the material, or the citation was inadvertently dropped from the reference list, or they had simply forgotten where they found the material and thought they wrote it themselves--this last one is particularly amusing since the majority of students I have seen using this excuse are the worst writers and could hardly write a simple sentence without major mistakes, but now claim to think they actually wrote this well-written passage.

In short, it appears we have created a world of liars, cheats, and thieves; who think they are above the rules and regulations and should be entitled to circumvent reality.

All ideas are derivative. The mission is to put it in your own words and if you can't say it better then quote and reference it, as above

In most creditable Western universities, quoting is discouraged unless the passage is a famous quote or it so succinct that paraphrase cannot convey the same meaning. Paraphrase is also regulated in that the vast majority of the words in a passage must be changed; in other words, re-write the passage in your own words. Many students; however, change only a few words and expect to get by. Therefore, some universities have set a maximum percentage of duplicated words allowed in a passage of text--some schools set it at 10%. Of course, if the passage contains specific terms and/or technical words for which there are few synonymms, the percentage may necessarily have to change.

[JimHuaHin]

When I was in college couple years ago, we had to submit our work electronically and they were automatically scanned for plagiarism. How often the professor scans them I don't know, but I do know they do it once in a while and the tool is there for them to use.

It depends on the plagiarism software and what settings are used. The last university I taught at in Australia used several different programmes over the last decade or so and experimented with different settings.

At the time I left the university, the suspect plagiarised sentences/paragraphs where highlighted in red when the marker/grader opened up the assignment online to grade.

[SheungWan]

And then there is self-plagiarisation in the research world. Constantly churning out the same stuff in research with only minor changes at each submission.

[DavisH]

Thais resort to plagiarism because generally they have no ideas of their own but would NEVER admit it (probably don't even realise it in themselves).

Subliminally they resort to a this surreptitious way of copying of other peoples work (again probably not recognising they are doing this).

"Thais resort to plagiarism ..."

Another farang social critic living in a bubble. Plagiarism has existed in the western world forever and is only that much worse since the advent of the Internet. Just gratuitous Thai bashing.

"because generally they have no ideas of their own"

Please do append a list of the original work you've had published so we can be suitably impressed.

Apparently some people who have ideas of their own still resort to plagiarism and they're not even Thai.

Yes and this is just the very short list.

No one denies this does not happen in the West. But these days it is much more difficult to get away with it, especially in refereed journals, where experts in their field will detect any anomalies. In Thai refereed journals, it is much easier to get away with, as material in english can be translated to Thai and published as ones own work. When Thailand becomes more internationalised, this will be less of a problem, as they will need to publish work in english to get world-wide recognition. As an aside, my students think cheating is "helping each other" . They value "group effort" over individual effort, even if that group effort is entirely one students work.

[KarenBravo]

For those that try to excuse cheating and plagiarism by saying it happens in the West too, the difference is that in the West, students know it's wrong.

In many Asian countries, it's considered normal and a right.

In India and Bangladesh, students have gone on strike for the right to cheat. Can you see that ever happening in the West?

[Rhys]

Should Graduate advisors be consider authors on a student's thesis.... yes, this the tradition, but did they write the thesis.. and yes, it is the custom? Thus some will say authorship vs the true typist of the page... is this considered institutional plagiarism?

[VocalNeal]

When at college I either forgot to do or couldn't do an assignment so I asked a mature student from the air-force if I could copy his. (This by hand not by PC.) 

There were two high scoring marks.  The air-force guy who got 80% and me who got 10% for the work and 70% for initiative.