“We were not taught about plagiarism! We do not even know what is it?” responds Dev Patel* (name changed on request), a student of a ‘renowned’ college in the western region of Mumbai. The case of Dev is not new and will not be old either, after seeing his whole class impudently imitate the dissertation aka ‘black book’ from academia.edu, oatd.org, indcat, and other websites that upload thesis and dissertation, without fearing social and legal consequences stemming from this act of plagiarism or copyright violation.
I happened to examine a viva voce at this ‘renowned’ college, on invitation, and it was as usual shocking. I felt helpless but I was supposed to give them “good scores” so that their paper “dissertation” would be cleared at this juncture of their semester-6, the final year of under-graduation. No questions asked, unfortunately!
This subject ‘Research Methodology’, for once, is taught in all genres of courses at the levels of under-graduation and post-graduation, with an intent to inculcate research skills and enhance inquisitive nature among the learners. The noble aim is to generate a ‘fact-finding’ culture and uplift academic credibility but sadly the subject has been toned down to a ‘copy-paste’ assignment activity, without serious reflections on the process, design, and impact of research.
“If you copy from one book, that’s plagiarism; if you copy from many books, that’s research.” — Prof Notestein, Faculty of English History, Yale University.
Imitating someone else’s research work and attributing it to your own work is not an art. On the contrary, it is a violation of intellectual property. In simple words, it is ‘plagiarism’. NRI Legal Services defines it as, “Using someone else’s work into one’s own work, with or without their consent and then offering it as own without any acknowledgement of whether it is intentional or unintentional.” As per this, whenever one uses sentences, words, ideas, or phrases, to summarize, or paraphrase another person’s work, it is important to name the source of information in your work. And not citing, acknowledging, or quoting the source in your work is considered plagiarism.
In the Indian context:
- Section 57 of the Copyright Act of 1957, provides authors with the right (special right) to claim authorship of their work to detain or claim damages in respect of any modification, distortion, mutilation, or other act related to the said work which is done before the expiration of the term of copyright if such act would be damaging to his honour or reputation
- Section 63 of the Copyright Act of 1957 states the punishment for the offence of breach of rights convened under this Act. The offender shall be punishable with imprisonment. The term for the offence may vary from six months to three years. The lawbreaker may have to compensate in terms of money i.e., fine which may range from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2,00,000. Or both imprisonment and fine.
- Section 63(a) of the Act states punishment for the offence of breach of rights convened under this Act for the second time. The offender who commits the offence for the second time (again) will be punishable by imprisonment for a term that may vary from one year to three years and with a fine varying from Rs 1,00,000 to Rs 2,00,000.
That society is the best, which thinks, which does research. The importance of research is inherently located in the quality of development of scientific temperament but these colleges, including the MBA institutes, often allocate limited priority to consecrating research and methods. Thence, the quality is drowning as we directly witness an inflationary proportion of the predatory journals.
After observing a few more ‘reputed’ colleges in Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and New Delhi, especially on the eve of viva voce of ‘final-year’ students, I realized that the rabbit hole is deep. And there is no coming back? During the pedagogy of ‘research methodology,’ the goal is focused more on the deadline than on the research outcome. The students eventually generate the most famous ‘Google forms’, circulate them on WhatsApp, and fill each other’s survey, disguising the sampling size and other elements in the synopsis. The obsession with ‘empirical research’ is widely seen, in these cases, as if there is no other ‘type’ of research ever existing in this universe.
Of course, in the town, there is certainly a good talk about the ‘ethical code of research conduct’ but is it really making a difference on the ground? The professors or the guide teaching the subject have a bigger role to play, primarily, and that is by strictly monitoring the flow of research and by verifying plagiarism software before approving, but the most important and yet paradoxical question to ask, before I head for another viva voce examination — Is cheating good till it is not caught?
