What Do Cheating and Plagiarism Have in Common Free Essay Example, 1750 words

In some instances, people tend to use falsehoods or deception in order to gain advantage over other unsuspecting people. In this case, a person chooses to cheat another person for personal gain which is not acceptable behaviour. Misrepresenting facts in order to gain or profit from somebody is a form of cheating and it amounts to stealing. For example, if a person sells something that he fully knows does not work, then it is cheating which is a serious offence that is not acceptable in society. Some people try to manipulate even games to their advantage but each game has its own set of rules. Such rules are designed in such a way that is meant to regulate the behaviour of the participants. Plagiarism is different from cheating in that this is regarded as a serious offence that carries hard penalties to the offenders who steal other people s ideas without acknowledging them. It is a criminal offence to use other people s scholarly work as yours without acknowledging the owner of the original work. In some cases, a person might commit the offence without knowing but that does not limit the seriousness of the offence. We will write a custom essay sample on What Do Cheating and Plagiarism Have in Common or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now Thus, plagiarism is another form of cheating but it carries strict penalties compared to ordinary cheating. It can be noted that plagiarism specifically deals with stealing intellectual property without giving proper acknowledgment to the owners of the work. Plagiarism rules are meant to protect the interests and rights of individuals such that their work is not reproduced without proper referencing. Basically, cheating is a broad term that is used to describe behaviour that is characterised by elements of falsehoods, unfaithfulness, untruthfulness that are meant to benefit selfish people who want to gain advantage over others or the situation. Plagiarism is another form of cheating but is mainly limited to academic work which involves using other people s ideas without properly acknowledging or referencing them. Thus, the main difference between the two is determined by the nature of the offence where a distinction between academic work and other social aspects are concerned.