Change of motivation as a required condition for the prevention of plagiarism

Abstract

We are guided by the conception that the present fight against plagiarism is a struggle with the consequences, whereas, in our opinion, the main efforts should be focused on preventing plagiarism. And the best way to avert plagiarism is work with pupils and students. Therefore, in this article we offer an advisory curriculum of special course of plagiarism study.Such special course is needed for students of all specialties, but above all – for future teachers and journalists. Teachers educate children and youth, so it strongly depends upon them, which values, academic honesty or dishonesty in particular, will be established in a society; and journalists form or format the information space and public opinion, including tolerance or rejection of plagiarism in particular, and various forms of academic dishonesty manifestation in general.On the basis of our own research we consider that this course should cover topics related to: 1) understanding of the essence, of types, of classification criteria of plagiarism; 2) comprehension of various aspects of plagiarism manifestation, including juridical (plagiarism as a manifestation of legal nihilism and abuse of right to creative activities), axiological (plagiarism as a deconstructive value transformation), ethical (plagiarism as a violation of ethical norms and moral prescriptions), general philosophical (plagiarism in the context of simulations and simulacra theory, semiocentralism, postmodernism, etc.), social and communicative (hypertext and plagiarism, plagiarism (copy-and-paste, rewrite) as the cause, which could lead to the marginalization of the journalistic profession); 3) manifestation of plagiarism in mass media (plagiarism committed by journalists; plagiarism of journalistic information materials; plagiarism of materials about the plagiarism as a type of the latter) and efforts of mass media in the fight against plagiarism; 4) features of plagiarism perception in society in general (in Ukraine and abroad) and in the journalist community in particular; 5) effectiveness of usage of plagiarism detection systems; 6) the mosthigh-profile cases on plagiarism, etc.