Plagiarism In Formal University Exams: Third-year Lmd Students Of English

الملخص

It is rather a truism that with the advent of modern communication technologies students have gained access to numerous databases which contain thousands of books and articles. However, such a positive aspect has led also to the rise of plagiarism. The current research endeavors to shed light on the phenomenon and relates it with difficulties university students face with writing skills. First, through a literature review, the paper examines the relationship between academic writing and plagiarism. Furthermore, it ponders on the notion of the curse of knowledge and why most students fail to yield satisfactory written production. The work makes use of a mix-methods approach of investigation: the quantitative analysis and the qualitative data interpretation. The sample comprises of 20 exam papers of approaches to teaching module by third-year LMD students. The results indicate that most of the answers provided in the exam are not students’ own words but they often rely on others’ writing. An alarming situation that teachers and the whole university system need to align to raise awareness about academic dishonesty