November 22, 2008	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 23, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 21: The need to create awareness about the after-effects of plagiarism in the world of academia as opposed to just being on the lookout for plagiarists was stressed at a workshop held on Friday at the Aga Khan University’s Institute of Educational Development (AKU-IED).

Organized by the Pakistan Association for Research in Education (PARE), the workshop was one of four held on Friday as part of the run-up to the conference to be held on Saturday titled ‘Educational research in Pakistan: opportunities and challenges,’ which has also been arranged by the same organization.

The workshop in question, attended by a large number of educators and titled ‘Plagiarism in academic work,’ was conducted by Dr Anwar Siddiqui, professor and associate dean for research at AKU.

Dr Siddiqui emphasized that instead of searching for culprits and policing the world of academia, it would be better to create awareness about the consequences of getting caught in the act of plagiarism. He said there were problems investigating plagiarism as there were conflicts of interest, such as the name of the institute coming into disrepute or having to expose superiors who were involved in the practice.

He said that in the recent past, plagiarism had been highlighted at various institutes of higher learning in Pakistan and claimed the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had begun to pay serious attention to the issue.

Defining plagiarism, Dr Siddiqui said it was the “systematic stealing of ideas, words, techniques, data etc without appropriate acknowledgment.”

“One cannot have claim on an idea until it is documented to prove ownership. All engaged in research must write; we as a society have an inhibition against writing,” he added.

Dr Siddiqui said that claims must be cited; if they were not, it would amount to plagiarism. “Research must be laid out, aired, inspected and approved by others. Academic writing is full of rules writers don’t know how to follow. Working knowledge of these rules is critically important.”

He stressed the need to document when citing any media; however, he said the need to document did not arise when citing one’s own experiences. He added that one should also document when interviewing someone, or copying a quote, diagram, illustration etc.

“The question about ownership of ideas is not simple; the real challenge is the establishment of your thinking with research.”

Dr Siddiqui also cited a famous instance of “patriotic plagiarism”, in the case of slain American president John F. Kennedy, to whom the famous quote “ask not what your country can do for you …” has been erroneously attributed. He said these famous words originally belonged to Lebanese-American mystic philosopher Khalil Gibran and were taken from his work The New Frontier, but had wrongly been associated with JFK due to a lack of proper acknowledgment.

He also pointed out that even if there were no legal implications of plagiarism, one was still bound by the ethical implications. He said there should not be separate rules for academic and general writing and that children should be taught that “cutting and pasting” was not the right thing to do.

Dr Siddiqui also observed that the internet had made plagiarism much easier, as countless websites existed – referred to as “paper mills” – which churned out research papers for a few dollars. However, he added that technology, specifically through the use of certain software, had made tracking plagiarism easier as well.

Citing the importance of academic integrity, he said that it was essential for teachers to conduct themselves properly as they exercised a massive influence on children and could act as a buffer to protect children from society’s negative influences.

Dr Siddiqui concluded with an interesting quote from Brian Martin, who has written extensively on plagiarism in academia: “stealing from one source is plagiarism; stealing from many sources is research.”

The other workshops conducted were on ‘Action research: understanding what, why and how’; ‘Ethics in educational research’ and ‘Writing a research proposal.’