Alamak kantoi!!!

Two UPM Lecturers Caught for Plagiarism

The case shows the state of our academic and the so-called academicians. One small picture of our academic landscape in a sorry state—the tip of an iceberg—one might say, that gives indication of the bigger picture. The "cut-and-paste" culture has been embedded into our academia for so long but has recently given a boost by the explosion of Windows95 and the internet. It has become a trend and soon the final year profjects, master's dissertation and PhD thesis  have found a new lease of life to grow and eventually would take the students out of the classroom onto the graduation stage. The question is how come they can get away with such an heinous act ? because their lecturers never read the damn report and never bother to check the references.It looks good then it's fine, weigh them by the kilos and measure the thickness of the report. Then off you go into the real world to do exactly the same thing as they have been doing in college. The stupid UPM lecturers are the victim of such circumctances. How come a professor never bother to ask the sources that his very reputation will be based upon. "It looked fine to me", he said.Yeah, fine in what? In print? In graphics? Or you are just too lazy to check things out. And they live with it for six years before being discovered....mybe he got the professorship out of this book. So another "cut-and-paste" professor from our good old institution of higher learning....I guess there must a lot more from where he comes from, so I wonder. The book is only 64 pages and they could not come up with their own ideas...how pathetic. They definitely do not have what it takes to be academicians. I say, SACK THEM BOTH!!! And make UPM pay for this as well---for ruining the good name of our Malaysian academics, and that includes me of course.

Plagiarism crept into act out of desperation. Desperation sets in during the last minute rush to complete a task, a project or a report. And why things are done at the very last minute ?.....lazy,lazy,lazy…that’s the root of the problem. There is a book entitled –The Culture of A Lazy Nation---or something like that from our very own author (could not remember which one); I guess he was talking about this very issue. There is nothing wrong for being lazy but it is a start of a damaging character.

To act responsibly in an academia is to be honest---“jujur dengan ilmu” a phrase from one of my colleague in UiTM----it sums up the whole thing. Remember that every time you want to write or produce an academic work. But with the pressures from up above and all around things will get really nasty. The pressure now is to get into the ranking; from the top right down to the individual lecturer, everyone will get the score. Everyone is like “lipas kudung” rushing around to meet the deadline—ours is end of September, so I was told. There is a simple formula to avoid plagiarism --- tell everyone what is NOT yours as you explain your part--- that’s all. But if everything is NOT yours how come you will ever get a grade? Time and again it goes back to our own work and effort. Do not expect to get something out of nothing---there must be hard work and genuine effort. Be truthful to yourself. Be honest!