According to Kakkonen and Mozgovoy (2012), cyber-plagiarism can be defined as "a type of academic dishonesty that consists of reusing whole electronic documents, or parts of them, composed by another author without proper acknowledgment of the original source" (p. 1168).
Cyber-plagiarism has also been called "e-plagiarism," "web plagiarism," and "cut-and-paste plagiarism." Most often, it refers to cutting and pasting content from website pages and presenting it as one's own original work.
Discussions of cyber-plagiarism typically involve addressing:
Ghost Writing
The Dictionary of Publishing and Printing defines a ghostwriter as "somebody who writes something for or with somebody else, the other person receiving sole credit as the author" (2006, "Ghostwriter").
Ghost writing is thus the practice of writing a text without formal acknowledge as an author. In some industries, ghost writing is considered an acceptable practice. In other contexts, such as medical journalism and scholarship, it is considered deceptive and therefore unethical.
Both plagiarism and ghostwriting conceals the true author's name. The difference between the two is:
False Authorship
Also called pseudepigraphy, false authorship refers to the "practice of writers ascribing a false name as the author of a particular work, usually to give a piece of writing greater authority or credibility" and more broadly, "any attempt to assign a false name to a piece of writing" (Page, 2004, p. 429).
In many cases, false authorship can be considered fraudulent as it is purposely deceives and misleads both the reader and the general public.
At Bow Valley College, both ghost writing and false authorship are considered acts of academic dishonesty. If anyone other than yourself has written or contributed to your assignment and you present it as entirely your own work, you will be subject to academic penalties for dishonestly representing the work.
Below is a selection of websites, new articles, and resources available in the library databases for understanding the concepts of ghost writing and false authorship:
References
Ghostwriter. (2006). In P. Collin (Ed.), Dictionary of publishing and printing. London, United Kingdom: A&C Black. Retrieved from http://search.credoreference.com
Page, J. S. (2004). Cyber-pseudepigraphy: A new challenge for higher education policy and management. Journal Of Higher Education Policy & Management, 26(3), 429-433. doi:10.1080/1360080042000290267
An essay or paper mill refers to websites that compile and sell ready-made assignments, which students can then purchase directly or pay a fee to access and download.
Why Avoid Essay & Paper Mills?
Below is a selection of websites, new articles, and resources available in the library databases on the dangers of using online essay or paper mills: