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Hi to everyone,
         I am pretty happy to start with a great topic like this which can be considered as an “idea-copying and life ruining” GHOST not only for students but also for researchers, scientists, media, etc. The act of plagiarism is leading its way. Even though, you are much familiar with the term Plagiarism, let’s have a glance look over it.
         The term ‘Plagiarism’ was originated from the Latin word ‘Plagiarius’ which means ‘kidnapper’ (1). Plagiarism can be defined as an illegal act of recycling/copying the information of others as one’s own, without proper acknowledgement. (1)(2)
Stepping into the scene,
         In my college (st.Ann’s), one of our sirs gives an interesting topic to each and every student and asks us to explain it to all the other classmates. This practice is still being continued with an objective to make us free of stage-fear. At first, no one of us was mentioning the references, from where we have collected the matter. By keeping this in mind, our sir made it compulsory to cite the source. We too started providing the source and it became must to end an explanation with proper citation. One day, I questioned my sir what’s the reason behind asking the reference like this. And then he explained me about PLAGIARISM. That was the first time, I heard to this word. He gave an interesting instance of plagiarism which was committed by an Indian Professor.

INDIAN PROFESSOR GUILTY OF PLAGIARISM:
            He was none other than Mr. Pattium Chiranjeevi, who was a chemistry professor at Sri Venkateswara University (SVU), in Tirupathi (3). He was accused of plagiarizing more than 70 research papers, which were published in a variety of Western Scientific International Journals, between 2004 & 2007. (4)
How was he caught?
    Dasgupta, a chemistry professor at the university of Texas, Arlington, discovered this outrageous fraud when one of his students pointed out blazing instances of copying while “peer-reviewing” a paper authored by prof Chiranjeevi (3). After a subsequent inquiry by SVU, Chiranjeevi was found guilty of committing the most spectacular and outrageous scientific fraud. (3)(4)
Punishment he faced:
University executive council has banned him from undertaking examination work and research guidance, in Sept, 2007.  He was also debarred from securing further promotions as well as being appointed to administrative positions in the university. (4)(5)

OTHER INSTANCES WHICH I SEARCHED UP FOR:
1.    We all know about the famous scientist GREGOR MENDEL who is considered as the ‘Father of Genetics’. Unfortunately Mendel had his work plagiarized by the other scientist Hugo De Vries, in 19th century. Mendel had risen up with breakthroughs in genetics, but no one realized what he had accomplished. Later, in early 1900’s De Vries published a paper which was almost similar to the work done by Mendel. A third-scientist, Carl Correns was also attempting some similar experiments and for this purpose he read the work of both Mendel and De Vries. Then there was the out-burst of the truth that De Vries plagiarized the work of Mendel. This was not realized until Carl Correns observed this. Due to this, Correns gave credit to Mendel in his paper and discredited De Vries work.(2)
2.    Let us consider the other famous case of Albert Schatz. He was a graduate student working under Selman Waksmann at Rutgers. Albert Schatz was the person who discovered the antibiotic STREPTOMYCIN. Even though the first publication identified Schatz as primary author, it was Waksmann who began to take sole credit for this discovery, ultimately earning him the noble prize, in 1952. (6)

How To Share Information Without Violating The Copyrights:
    Proper Citation (7)
    Providing the source or information for every sentence we copy
    Using quotations in our writing is sometimes the best way to give a complex definition (7)
    Even though a proper paraphrasing is done, we must still cite. (1)
CONCLUSION:
       What I understood and want to say is that- Plagiarism robs our ability to think, restricts us to come up with innovative ideas. If we get addicted to this illegal act, then we cant able to analyze the situations, we can’t emerge out with original solutions. This practice of copying ultimately hurts the student who plagiarizes. (7)
         LET’S STOP THIS “CUT-COPY-PASTE LAW”. Yet in this arena of science, there is need for behavior modulation (1).
         I think that this is the time to learn properly because, if we commit a mistake, the business world is not nearly as forgiving. (7)

RFERENCES:
     
      (1)  Accessed on feb26,2010- http://www.e-ijd.org/article.asp?issn=0019-5154;year=2006;volume=51;issu...
     
      (2)  Accessed on feb26,2010- http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=28241
    
      (3)  Accessed on feb25,2010- http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_indian-professor-guilty-of-plagiari...
     
      (4)  Accessed on feb25,2010- http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/23/stories/2008022355371200.htm
     
      (5)  Accessed on feb27,2010- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_plagiarism_in_India#Prof._P._Chi...
     
      (6)   Accessed on feb26,2010- http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm/plagiarism/Acknowledging%20the%20source...
     
      (7)   Accessed on feb26,2010- http://www.cte.usf.edu/plagiarism/plag.html 

  fig1:   The animated image is provided by: www reddodo.com
     
    Note: The paragraphs and some of the lines for which citation is not given are the own sentences used.