Plagiarism, the Academic Dishonesty: An Insight into the Preventive Measures in Academic Institutions

The act of taking some ones else's creative work and projecting as their own is considered as fraud and unethical. Such unethical practices are more distressing as in the academic and research highest values are attributed to original research, and it contributes to the multi-focal development of mankind. The issue is more precipitating due to the proliferation and easy accessibility of scholarly resources in digital format. In this premise, the paper outlines the concept of plagiarism explaining the contributing factors for the occurrences of this academic misconduct. Several types of plagiarism were described highlighting the policies and practices framed as preventive measures by the governmental, nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions and publishers. Additionally, the need for running plagiarism screening using appropriate software was emphasized for academic environment, to be able to estimate the quantum of similarity in research documents and to justify the commonalities as well as self published papers etc. in the light of course work requirements in academic institutions.