Plagiarism

By : Parvez Moula Bakhsh

Plagiarism is a fraud and an offensive act that we all need to acknowledge and prevent. This is quite disappointing that some new writers steal others’ handy and worthy ideas and argue that these pieces are jotted by them and their own and personal ideas are included.

I am an avid reader. I have been reading newspapers daily since the day when the coronavirus first came and caused a total shutdown almost all around the world. But, sometimes I just feel that the same ideas which were published before are getting published without any change except the writer’s name and title of topics. How shameful is it to see people knocking over the ideas of other writers who struggled and spent much time writing these write-ups!

Unfortunately to pen down that in Pakistan plagiarism has become a highly common act among the students who plagiarize intending to gain better marks and such actions are mostly done on the internet where the students search for whatever they want first they copy it, secondly paste it, then they make some changes and at last, they claim it their piece.

Let’s talk about some facts and reality-based circumstances. Recently, one of my letters was published in The News International on the theme of “Echoes In The Void” and just after 6 days of the publication, I meet a letter which contained my ideas and the writer was also someone who I know. It simply means that he is plagiarizing and is doing fraud less to others and more to himself.

We all should understand that plagiarism is a blemish on the glories and it has satisfactions neither for the writer nor reader as they know these pieces are not self-made.

To be honest, plagiarism is also done by well-reputed writers but they are intelligent and can say creative they make necessary changes and a total change of narrating. Here is a lesson one can get that one can collect ideas from others’ handy pieces. Please do not take me wrong but yeah if you are bookish you probably know that some book authors try to convince their readers by indicating other books like Jeff Keller in his book “Attitude is everything” points out Napoleon Hill’s book ” Think and grow rich”.  Keep in mind that it is not plagiarism but research and narration. I will give you some tips on how to write by collecting ideas without being plagiarized but in another write-up because this write-up is getting lengthy which I do not want. 

Do you know why new writers and journalists are being encouraged to copy others’ ideas? there are two factors. The very first is to be famous and gain prestige in a shortcut. The second and most hurtful reason is that they plagiarize just because of getting marks and scores. But alas, they are not aware of the consequences which can be a cause of losing creativity and credibility. Yes, my dear readers! plagiarism has a very high impact on your creativity and it can be said that it can limit your mind if you do not avoid plagiarism. Hence, we should neither plagiarize nor encourage others to do so to protect and boost our creativity.

Furthermore, every know writer who encourages plagiarism should know that if he or she is a student, can be suspended or ousted under the law of copyright. As a result, we all know that he will be eradicated and the community will think bad words about him as like he is a cheater, is not original, he is fake, he is a fraud, etc.

The new writers should avoid plagiarism in order not to be called by dishonoring names as mentioned above as well as they should know that plagiarism makes them limited and their creativity of writing and thinking will be affected. 

In the conclusion, I only want to tell that copying others’ ideas does not satisfy one’s self because the person knows that the ideas are not original. Moreover, those who plagiarize will lack ideation and originality. We should give time to boost our creativity not copying others’ struggles.

Please do not take me wrong, I did not mean to hurt you by writing this piece. God knows my intention is just to make you realize how plagiarism is impactful, guilty, and immoral.

I hope, the rrreaders, understand and discourage the fraud of copying others and cheating others including one’s self. The newspapers should also ensure that the ideas do not contain plagiarism and are of the sender’s own to discourage plagiarism in the country. However, be thanks to the editors who edit articles and letters of writers to avoid plagiarism but should be the priority of editors so that both writer and editor will not feel the guilt of plagiarism. Read to know, write to live.