Aren’t you familiar with this procedure? It is a typical occurrence when students are trying to complete their report assignments. It’s kind of funny that so many students just sit on a chair, staring at computer monitor while typing some letter. This happens frequently among university students. What makes them do this?
    The process of Copy & Paste on creating reports is probably not unique to our country. According to a report from Reuter News Agency, most college students copy reports from the online report-sharing web site, report shop. Worse, they seldom fell guilty at all. In our country, students have been downloading reports from websites with several years. To download it costs about 500 ~ 4,000won per report and 3,000 ~ 15,000 won per thesis. In the past, students went to libraries to find related books, references and so on in order to write their report assignments. But as the internet has prevailed, the way of writing a report has changed.
    Once they are given a theme for the report, most students begin to research it on the net. In doing so, they get some information, and then Copy & Paste, the parts that they need into their own report. They can create a report just by clicking!

On-line Report Market
    It’s getting more problematic as specialized report web-sites provide a competitive service. We are in an ‘information and knowledge-based society’ and intellectual property rights should be protected. However, a few big portal web-sites which use immoral but not illegal business tricks continue to ruin colleges in our country. Before when several big portal websites provided report sharing and downloading services, the downloading was free of charge, bur recently users must pay all downloading charges. Representative report-serving web-sites such as Yahoo, Naver and Empas charge for their service by entering into a partnership with small report offering online companies. Some of them provide special services that other companies don’t. It informs users of information on which college students downloaded the report in order to give them comfort.

Isn’t it so ATTRACTIVE?

Problems Caused by copying Another’s Report Using the Web
    As a lot of on-line information isn’t clarified in footnotes, students might neglect to append sources. Moreover, as students pay for the reports provided by web sites, some of them submit the downloaded report itself without rewriting it to correspond to their own ideas. This behavior is decreasing but hasn’t completely disappeared. As professors have begun to pick up on this, some students now download several reports, select appropriate parts from each copy & paste them, and then submit them all as one in as edited version. The main problem caused by this behavior is that it could make intellectuals in our society become insensitive to plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious problem. Plagiarism is one of the most serious crimes but most students don’t feel guilty or sorry.

How can We Deal with This?
    Professors should pay more attention to examine students’ report assignments. They need to especially teach freshmen how to write a formal report, append notes and inform them as to what would happen next time without footnotes. In addition students should make an effort to write their OWN reports, so that they can have opportunities to benefit from creating a report. In this era where knowledge can create value, copying is a kind of crime. However, students can utilize the internet as a valuable resource to get information, but they must handle it honestly.

Conclusion
    Less and less report assignments are given to college students these days because professors know that most students just download other students’ reports, then paste some parts of them. Consequently, the original purpose of report assignments-improving students’ knowledge level, a criterion to judge among students- has faded away. Report assignments should be performed because they help students to improve their writing skills and accumulate knowledge systematically about their area of interest of major.

Interview

Hwang Heum-yeon
Researcher at the Dept. of writing Study
Education Development Research Institute

Q. What do You Think about Report Plagiarism?
    Plagiarism is the act of deceiving others deliberately by using unauthorized works or thoughts. This definition is from Irving Hexham’s “Academic Plagiarism Defined” written in 1999. Academic plagiarism is especially serious when it occurs in relation to college students’ reports or the final exam of a master’s course towards a candidacy for a Ph.D. These days, many articles have reported that among many graduate school students’ and even some professors’ plagiarism is a serious problem. In fact, if one’s work is proved to be plagiarized, it goes without saying that he or she must leave the academic world. The reason is that plagiarism is not only deeply connected with one’s personality but it is also an ethical problem.

Q. Could You Give Students Advice on How to Create a Good Report?
    University reports should be like a small thesis. So, writing a report should be based on through research and consideration of a subject. In our country, some professors give students heavy report assignments. The reason is that they want to help students’ learning abilities through performing report assignments. Students should collect detailed material using the internet and review it. Then they should write their own reports, which offer their opinions on the subject, based on information from their raw materials. It’s natural, but most students don’t think in this way.
    Report forms are also important as to the contents they contain. Both system and order are important. Students should consider which form seems suitable for their report and select the best among various report forms such as three or four paragraph composition and so on.