What Are The Consequences Of Plagiarism

Would you want to know about the consequences of Plagiarism? Based on my experience as a writer, the major issue is that you will have a work that is not original. 

It can also lead to your work being rejected or, in worse cases, even being expelled or having your academic degree revoked. You may even be reported for copyright infringement and fined.

Also, Plagiarism is a violation of the examination regulations, is considered an administrative offence, and can be punished with a fine of up to €50,000.

Severe or repeated attempts at deception can lead to expulsion (§ 63 para. 5 HG). But that is not all; however, as you read further, I will educate you more on the subject matter.

Now, let’s get started.

What Happens If Plagiarism Is Suspected

The criminal court can impose severe sanctions: 3 years of imprisonment; €300,000 fine; If the offence is committed in a group > 5 years of imprisonment, €500,000 fine.

The legal penalties for replicating works that have been published in France or outside are three years in jail and a fine of three hundred thousand euros.

The sale, export, import, transhipment, or possession for the purposes above of infringing works will be punished with the same penalties.

How Is Plagiarism Punished

Below are the legal consequences that a plagiarist faces in addition to the school or university measures

§ 106 Unauthorised use of copyrighted works

(1) Anybody who, under circumstances not allowed by law, copies, distributes, or publicly communicates a work, or an adaptation or modification of a work, without the owner’s permission, faces a maximum sentence of three years in jail or a fine.

(2) The attempt is punishable.

§ 109 Criminal complaint

In the cases of Sections 106 to 108 and Section 108b, the offence shall only be prosecuted upon application unless the prosecution authority considers official intervention necessary due to the particular public interest in the prosecution.

What Are The Possible Consequences of Plagiarism

As a consequence of Plagiarism, you risk failing your exam and, in worst cases, even being expelled or having your academic degree revoked.

You may even be reported for copyright infringement and fined.

In addition to criminal sanctions, the plagiarist may also be subject to disciplinary sanctions. These disciplinary sanctions depend on the seriousness of the Plagiarism.

Concerning students, they can range from a simple warning to temporary or permanent exclusion. The best thing is to make your work original. And write them independently.    

What Percentage Of Plagiarism Is Allowed

There is no exact guideline for how low a similarity score should be. The important thing is that your work does not contain any plagiarism.

This means that even Plagiarism of just 1% is too high. In practice, however, not all similarities found with the plagiarism software are Plagiarism.

However, stealing and presenting another person’s ideas or words as if they were our own, using another person’s production without acknowledging the source, committing literary theft,

and presenting as new data an idea or product that already exists (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

How Often Are Plagiarisms Discovered

Ten to twenty per cent of the work should actually be classified as Plagiarism. However, this does not happen because of the time-consuming tracking down:

“Plagiarism is not that easy to identify. Students are becoming more and more clever at it.

A paper is considered Plagiarism if it contains one out of thirty pages of copied material.

However, if the relevant passages are crucial to the thesis of the paper, even less can be enough to fail. Anyone caught cheating twice faces expulsion. However, this has not happened yet,

How Strict Is The Plagiarism Check

It is not unusual for 3-7% of your bachelor’s thesis to be marked. This is to show how much originality of work is valued.  Plagiarism check is that strict, and it is very much advisable that students and writers should make originality their top priority.  

Permitted percentage of Plagiarism: 0% plagiarism is permitted because Plagiarism violates the examination regulations of your university, according to which ‘the bachelor’s thesis […] must be written independently’.

Copying parts of other people’s texts is, therefore, not permitted, even in small quantities.

Finally, the acceptable plagiarism percentage is defined according to your institution’s policy. Most of the time, universities accept a plagiarism rate of less than 10%

Final Thought

Now that we have established what the consequences of Plagiarism are, as you will understand,  Plagiarism is prohibited because a failure to respect copyright is seriously detrimental not only to the offender but also to all the creative people and authors whose ideas are “looted.”

It is, therefore, essential to promote the authors and their citations.

But if you quote an extract of text of less than 40 words, you use double quotation marks directly before and after the quote. Referencing authors in your work and text makes it more original, because with that, your work will not be considered stealing or cheating. 

Then, you mention the author, year, and page number.