KARACHI:
Stealing from others has become rather common nowadays. The most widespread form of this is plagiarism, which is rampant in Pakistani academia. Plagiarism is the reproduction of another person’s academic or literary work by someone else. I often go through articles and essays in the newspaper and as well as on social media that contain material stolen from other people’s work.
The practice is even common among so-called teachers of universities across Pakistan. Being a student, I often see majority of our teachers in university rely on online materials. They download material from different websites, and make minor changes before sending it to students to study.
There are only a few teachers who provide proper references and try to incorporate a wholistic albeit critical approach while teaching certain subjects. Academics in Pakistan need to start conducting their own research. It is because of the rampant copy-paste culture that there is a dearth of knowledge about Pakistani society.
Many experts believe that sharing ones own thoughts with readers has a deep-rooted effect on them. If we smear our own writings with ready-made notes or passages written by others, it will undermine our credibility.
Ismail Gul Khilji
Quetta
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2021.
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