Recently I published a post in Spanish in which I recounted a bit of what happened when I had to explain to some students the problem of plagiarism of content in one of the works they delivered and that led them to fail that evaluation.

As the theme is common in different parts and places, I decided to translate it to share it with a wider audience, you can read the original at [https://steempeak.com/spanish/@pedrobrito2004/explicando-un-poco-sobre-plagio-a-mis-alumnos](https://steempeak.com/spanish/@pedrobrito2004/explicando-un-poco-sobre-plagio-a-mis-alumnos) (in Spanish)

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Not long ago, I had to correct some tasks given to me by some students from various sections that he dictated. In some cases I found content plagiarism that led to the cancellation of the evaluation, but what was more complicated was to explain to people that "copy and paste" without giving the sources was plagiarism.
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![](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.slidesharecdn.com%2Fplagioenlaacademia-140409125136-phpapp02%2F95%2Fplagio-en-la-academia-25-638.jpg%3Fcb%3D1397047964&f=1&nofb=1)
[Source](https://www.slideshare.net/lizmargarita/plagio-en-la-academia)
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I could not blame the young people for committing something that in their view was an error without intention, that is, they did not intend to plagiarize the contents of other people and simply thought that when mentioning them in the list of references was already resolved, Of course, I also had extreme cases in which they did not place the original authors in their list of consulted references ... however, none indicated that they had done so with the full awareness that it was something wrong.

At other times I would not have believed them and I might think they saw me as an idiot, but in truth I cannot detect any indication in them that they were lying to me, they seriously did not think that the way they used whole paragraphs was wrong of other people in a textual way without giving indications that this was a foreign job.
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![](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.XeQEXi8V-aOhHPFULFb18gHaGE%26pid%3DApi&f=1)
[Source](https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2019/09/20/nota/7525894/universidades-ecuador-utilizan-programas-informaticos-detectar)
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We went into intellectual property issues and tried to explain them using a 2006 example regarding a Shakira song of that year, now that I write this I could check that for that point it may be useful to visit: [Top five of Shakira's accusations for plagiarism of songs](https://www.elpais.com.co/entretenimiento/celebridades/top-cinco-de-las-acusaciones-a-shakira-por-plagio-de-canciones.html) (in spanish)

In that news that I refer you can find just the case I used as an example:

|'Amores como el nuestro', Jerry Rivera (1992)|'Hips Don´t Lie', Shakira (2006)|
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|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P0TNELT5_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P0TNELT5_Q)|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUT5rEU6pqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUT5rEU6pqM)|

If you listen carefully to the chords of the trumpets where the problem was that led to the public accusation of plagiarism, although then no further action was taken, perhaps it was an arrangement between the parties or they did not want to take the matter further. In any case, the situation was not pleasant.

The point is that despite everything, I could not blame the students for their lack, they were disapproved because of regulation, but in truth their action showed me the poor state in which our education system is from the initial stages, in which They are not taught that while thanks to the Internet you can consult any amount of material, you have to give credit to those who dedicated their efforts to produce the ideas and content we are consulting.