Scrutinizing EFL students' plagiarism practice

The current study was designed to investigate the types of plagiarism that appear in EFL students’ theses at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University, Indonesia. It sought to examine the plagiarism level, and investigate the triggering factors encouraging these EFL students of the 2019 batch to plagiarize. This study used a qualitative method with a case study approach. The participants in this study were ten EFL students of the 2019 batch and their theses. The participants were randomly selected. The data collection was carried out using two research instruments, namely document analysis and interviews. The researcher analyzed the student's thesis using Plagiarism Checker X. The results of the document analysis showed that there were two types of plagiarism detected in the student's thesis, namely word for word and mosaic plagiarism. Second, the researcher found that the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch English students' thesis of UIN ArRaniry was at the low-level plagiarism category, which can be observed from the result of the similarity index. The level of plagiarism found in these theses was less than 30%, still at an acceptable level as stipulated by the university regulations. Meanwhile, the * Corresponding author Scrutinizing EFL students' plagiarism practice 146 | Englisia: Journal of Language, Education, and Humanities | Vol.9, No.1, November 2021 interview results revealed that all participants are aware of plagiarism and believe it to be a negative behavior. Several factors influence EFL English students' plagiarism, such as poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, affordable internet access, and running out of ideas.


Literature review 2.1. Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in various ways. The term plagiarism is defined as stealing other people's ideas as his own or utilizing another person's work without recognizing the source. Plagiarism is a form of cheating performed intentionally or unintentionally by someone, failing to recognize the source of origin's rights and authority (Randhawa, Gupta, Arora, Nishant, & Gupta, 2015). Pecorari and Petric (2014) confirm that plagiarism is the appropriation of others' work without acknowledgment. Not only someone's work but also presenting the vocabulary or thoughts of someone else as your own without proper attribution is also categorized as plagiarism (Ellis et al., 2018).
Based on the definition above, it can be concluded that plagiarism is a form of cheating committed by a writer, such as stealing other people's work, vocabulary, or thoughts without mentioning the source, then acknowledging it as their own.

Types of plagiarism
Plagiarism has a broad scope, not just plagiarism in definition, but also form, type, and kinds. It is important to understand the meaning of plagiarism thoroughly to avoid committing plagiarism. With regard to motive, there are two types of plagiarism, intentional plagiarism and unintentional plagiarism. Intentional plagiarism occurs when the writer intentionally commits plagiarism. . It occurs when someone does deliberate copying or rewording from different sources without reference, for the most part, because of issues such as, for example, time limitations, ease of access to reproducible content, competitive pressure, minimum punishments if detected, or lack of dialect aptitudes (Amiri & Razmjoo, 2015). In contrast to intentional plagiarism, unintentional plagiarism denotes unpremeditated acts of plagiarism, marked by the incident. When the writer hears or reads another person's word, phrase, or idea and then forgets the source. Then, the author thinks that what he has written is his original idea. . Other types of plagiarism are self-plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, word for word plagiarism, idea plagiarism, deliberate/intentional plagiarism, and accidental/unintentional plagiarism (Randhawa, et al., 2015). Self-plagiarism occurs when a person uses data, facts, or figures from previously written papers and does not mention their source. Mosaic plagiarism takes place when the sentence or paragraph structure is almost similar to the source, and also the author does not acknowledge the original author and references are not appropriately cited. This type is a more common form of plagiarism. The word "plagiarism" denotes the act of copying every word from the original text without making any changes without specifying the source. This type is the same as copy-paste, the most common plagiarism (Debnath, 2016).
Idea plagiarism is the type of plagiarism that is difficult to verify. This is because the ideas are abstract and may have something in common with other people's opinions. Deliberate or intentional plagiarism occurs when someone is aware of copying material or buying material from other sources, and he does not give credit to the source, then the act is included in the category of deliberate plagiarism. On the other hand, accidental or unintentional plagiarism happens because sometimes, students are naive and aware of the rules and guidelines to avoid plagiarism. But they are not familiar with the proper way to cite material and are always hesitant when referencing material.
In general, plagiarism is divided into two, namely intentional plagiarism and unintentional plagiarism. The types of plagiarism categorized as intentional plagiarism include self-plagiarism, deliberate plagiarism, and direct plagiarism (plagiarism of text). Meanwhile, the types of plagiarism that are included in unintentional plagiarism are mosaic plagiarism, idea plagiarism, and accidental plagiarism.

The factors triggering plagiarism
Research on this particular issue has indicated several factors influencing a writer to commit acts of plagiarism, even though he/she realizes that his/her actions are incorrect and not academically permissible. Sometimes someone does plagiarism only once, but some people do it repeatedly so that it becomes a habit. In general, two factors can trigger students to commit plagiarism, namely, major and minor factors (Amiri & Razmjoo, 2015). Major factors include individual, academic, cultural, and technological aspects.
The individual aspect denotes the situation when students underestimate plagiarism and consider summarizing without citation as an ordinary course of action in completing their task. The academic aspect relates to students' poor writing skills and lack of quoting abilities. The cultural aspect occurs because the Western education system emphasizes originality and precise quotations, whereas non-westerners frequently emphasize less on plagiarism. technological aspect relates to the ease that technology and the internet provide, allowing students to get access to abundant online materials anytime and anywhere, worsening the severity of plagiarism conducted among students.
With regard to minor aspects, a curricular demand is one of the most common factors triggering students to plagiarize. This factor occurs because of excessive workload and time constraints, pushing students to finish their academic tasks, even if they have to commit plagiarism. Parental issues relate to the pressure from students' parents to get good grades or graduate quickly. This situation often drives students to take a shortcut by plagiarizing their work to please their parents. Personal characteristics refer to students' traits or characters, which often influence their behavior. Students with a strong desire to get good marks but who do not put hard work into their studies will likely cheat and plagiarize to get a good result. More often than not, they commit plagiarism. Greenberger, Hollbeck, and Dyer (2016) observed that there are two leading causes of students' plagiarism; poor paraphrasing and incorrect citation. Furthermore, Debnath (2016) summarizes at least eight reasons for plagiarism, such as: 1. Information that is readily available, especially with the internet. 2. There is publication pressure from academic demands, both for lecturers and students who will pursue academic targets.
3. Lack of confidence and writing skills often occurs in beginner writers. 4. Write articles in a rush and under pressure. 5. Lack of understanding and awareness of plagiarism. 6. Lack of awareness that even if other people provide the original text, they are still not allowed to make a copying effort without mentioning the source. 7. Some writers argue that using the concept/data/text they have (self-plagiarism) and publishing it beforehand without citing itself is normal and not wrong, as long as you don't copy other people's works. 8. Habitual plagiarists, Habitual plagiarists made easy by the existence of computers and the internet.

Plagiarism detection software
Detecting plagiarism can be done either manually or by using an application to detect the level of plagiarism in scientific work. Plagiarism can be seen by editors, reviewers, members of the editorial board, publishers, or anyone involved in the publication process (Gomez, Lakshminarayan, & BK, 2014). According to Marjanovic Tomsevic, and Zivcovic (2015), there are several plagiarism detection tools, including Approbo, Image Stamper, DocCop, Plagiarism Checker, WCopyfind, Jplag, iThenticate, Turnitin, Plagiarism Detect, Docoloc, EVE2, andScriptum.
In this study, the researchers used Plagiarism Checker X to examine students' theses.
It is online-based software with the domain address http://www.plagiarismcheckerx.com. Plagiarism Checker X is a plagiarism detection tool intended for students, teachers, writers, and researchers to protect their writing from plagiarism. It works by detecting patterns of similarity in sentences, words, and paragraphs in the form of accuracy, as outlined in percentage. Based on the information available at its website (Plagiarismcheckerx, 2020), the features available in the Plagiarism Checker X software include the following: 1. Online plagiarism. This feature will detect content that is plagiarized through several search engines such as Google and Yahoo! The document will be scanned through sixteen billion web pages that have been indexed by Plagiarism Checker X. 2. Side by side comparison. In the side by side comparison feature, we can compare the level of similarity between one document and another. We can find out the percentage similarity of documents and can find words, sentences, and paragraphs that have similarities. 3. Bulk search. In the bulk search service, we can compare one document with many other documents. The result of this comparison is only the percentage level of document similarity. 4. Accurate and instantaneous results. This feature provides the speed of accuracy in the detection of plagiarism with sophisticated algorithms that cross-check up to 20,000 words in one second, so users get instant results in one detection.
5. 100% user privacy guaranteed. This security feature guarantees 100% user privacy is always safe. The results of the detection will not be copied, stored, or sold by the software developer. 6. Enhanced compatibility. This software supports all popular text-based formats such as PDF, DOCX, DOC, RTF, and HTML and is compatible with all versions of Windows.

Plagiarism tolerance limit
Within the context of Indonesian Higher Education, based on the decree of the Director-General of Islamic Education number 7142 of 2017 concerning plagiarism prevention, the tolerance limit for application-based plagiarism or plagiarism detection software is set at 25% for scientific papers or theses. This is the requirement for graduation at the D-4 or Bachelor level. For a thesis and dissertation as a graduation requirement at the Magister and doctoral program levels, the maximum plagiarism is 20%.

Research design
This research used the qualitative method. According to Creswell and Creswell (2018), qualitative research is investigating and understanding the significance of an individual or group that is considered a social or human problem. In a similar vein, Bryman (2012) stated that in qualitative research, a researcher depends on respondents' experiences and analyzes information in the structure of words or text from participants as a substitute than quantification in data collection and analysis. The qualitative method allows us to build a solid understanding of a topic, uncovering the meaning that people perceive concerning their lives, activities, situations, circumstances, people, and objects (Leavy, 2017).
This study used a qualitative method with a case study approach. A case study is a part of qualitative research where the researcher examines in detail a program, event, activity, procedure, or one or more people (Creswell & Creswell 2018). Besides, according to Yin (2018), a case study is an empirical method of investigating phenomena in-depth, particularly when the boundaries between phenomena and settings may not be correct. Case studies have several important things, one of which is examining something in the context of real-life (Griffe, 2012). The unique strength of case studies is their ability to relate fully to various evidence types, whether documents, tools, interviews, and observations.

Population and sample
The population of this research was students of the English Language Education Department (ELED) of UIN Ar-Raniry who graduated in 2019, along with their thesis. Based on data from the university website, 124 ELED students graduated in 2019. Their theses are available at the library repository website in the form of pdf files, which can be accessed in full text. The sample is a part of the population that is used by the researchers to generalize the population (Creswell, 2012). Out of 124 English students who graduated in 2019, 10 students were randomly selected, and they agreed to be interviewed.

Data collection and analysis
In this study, the researchers used interviews and documentation as data collection procedures. The interview was needed to excavate deep information about the triggering factors that drive students to plagiarize. Interviews provide researchers with a valuable way to learn about the world of others, even though sometimes the proper understanding can be challenging to understand (Qu & Dumay, 2011). The type of interview used in this study is a semi-structured interview. In the semi-structured interview, the interviewer has prepared a list of questions, but the interviewer can ask further questions in response to the participants' answers that are considered significant (Bryman, 2012). In short, questions that are not included in the guide can be asked during the interview. The students whose theses were analyzed for plagiarism agreed to participate in the interview, conducted by telephone due to social distancing imposed by the university.
The researchers also utilized the document analysis technique as a data collection method. In this study, the researcher randomly downloaded 10 EFL students' thesis from the year 2019 graduation to analyze. The researcher used the 2019 batch students' thesis because it is the newest thesis and can be obtained from the website repository.ar-raniry.ac.id.
After collecting the students' thesis, the researchers analyzed them by using the Plagiarism Checker X software. To find out the types of plagiarism, the researcher compared the students' theses with the original sources. Because students tended to commit plagiarism in these chapters, the analysis was limited to chapters I and II. Meanwhile, to find out the plagiarism level of the students' theses, the researcher analyzed the whole thesis, from chapter I to Chapter V. Then Plagiarism Checker X displayed the percentage of the thesis similarity index.

Findings
To examine the types of plagiarism appearing in students' theses, the researchers conducted document analysis on the students' theses. Plagiarism Checker X software was used to detect and analyze the types of plagiarism. Based on the results of document analysis using the Plagiarism Checker X software, the researcher found two types of plagiarism committed by the students, namely word for word plagiarism and mosaic plagiarism.

The word for word plagiarism
The word for word plagiarism is the act of copying every word from the original text, without making any changes without specifying the source. This type is the same as copy-paste. The examples of this plagiarism can be seen in the following table.

Mosaic plagiarism
According to Randhawa et al. (2015), this type is a more common form of plagiarism. The sentence or paragraph structure is almost similar to the source, and the author does not acknowledge the original author, and references are not appropriately cited. We can see the examples of mosaic plagiarism in table 2. From these data, it can be concluded that some participants committed mosaic plagiarism, namely participants A, D, F, G, and I. As previously mentioned, this plagiarism occurs when a writer writes a sentence that is almost the same as the original author's sentence or paragraph structure, and the writer adds his/her own words to the sentence.

The plagiarism level of students
To examine the level of students' plagiarism level, the researchers run a complete check of their theses to look for the similarity index of student theses with data sources from the internet using the Plagiarism Checker X software. The result can be seen in the following table: Table 3 The level of similarity with sources on the internet. 1  TA  19%  2  TB  12%  3  TC  9%  4  TD  22%  5  TE  24%  6  TF  20%  7  TG  24%  8  TH  17%  9 TI 18% 10 TJ 15% Source: Results of data analysis

No. Thesis Code Similarity Index
The ranges used to examine the similarity index of students theses are 0-19% (indicating a low level of plagiarism), 20-39% (indicating a medium level of plagiarism, and up to 40% (indicating a high level of plagiarism (https://plagiarismcheckerx.com, 2020).

Plagiarism triggering factors
After conducting interviews with participants, the researchers found several factors that triggered English students to commit plagiarism in writing a thesis. Those factors are:

Poor time management
Some students admitted to plagiarizing because of limited time and deadlines. As participant E said: One of the reasons why I plagiarize is because of limited time. As you know my supervisor gave me a deadline for submitting thesis revisions. Sometimes, I only have two days to revise, so I take an idea from an article or journal and make it a sentence and without a source. And because of the deadline, I immediately copied and pasted a sentence and put it in my thesis.
In a similar vein, participant I said "Another reason that makes me plagiarism is deadlines. Sometimes my supervisor sets deadlines for revision and sometimes I have my target deadlines for myself so that I can do my thesis exam quickly". In addition, participant F argued "I have limited time to make the task you know, so I don't have much time to paraphrase and give credit so that is why I commit plagiarism".
The excerpts showed that some students admitted to plagiarism because of limited time and deadlines. Some students want to finish their thesis quickly. So their supervisor sets a deadline for revision. So this triggers them to commit plagiarism.

Laziness
From the results of the interview, participants agreed that laziness is one of the factors that influence them to plagiarize. When a strong desire for receiving good marks and laziness starts to arise in a person, then, he/she can commit plagiarism (Amiri & Razmjoo, 2015). One of the participants, J revealed: "I did intentional plagiarism because of the deadline and laziness to read a lot of journals, so I only read two articles or journals and I combined them without putting a source". Participant A also stated: "Sometimes I'm lazy to paraphrase a text, so I do plagiarism by copy-paste the text and add a few of my words and put them in my thesis".
The researcher found that laziness makes students take the easiest way to complete their thesis using plagiarism. They take sentences in a journal or article and combine them with their own words. Then they form a sentence and claim it as their sentence.

Poor paraphrasing skills
Paraphrasing skill is very important to avoid plagiarism. When the student has a problem with paraphrasing skills, accidental plagiarism can occur. Poor student paraphrase can be caused by a lack of academic vocabulary (Gomez et al., 2016). When interviewing, most of the participants mentioned that their paraphrase skills were still low. As participant A stated: Absolutely yes. Because paraphrasing skill is important, we have to look for synonyms of the words in the sentence. When I paraphrase a sentence, I think I paraphrased it well, but the plagiarism is still detected. That means my paraphrase ability is still low.
Participant C also stated: Yes, of course. Knowledge about paraphrase is important and we certainly have learned about it in class. And it can prevent plagiarism. But, due to a lack of vocabulary knowledge, we only change the words a little from a sentence. I think that can make us do plagiarism.
Moreover, participant J provided a similar answer, she stated "I think yes, if it is difficult to paraphrase a sentence, so they will choose to copy and paste the sentence immediately, because it is more practical. As a result it could trigger plagiarism I think".
Based on the excerpts above, some participants agreed that poor paraphrasing skills can cause them to plagiarize. Some students stated that they thought they had paraphrased correctly, but plagiarism is still detected. It means that some students' paraphrase ability is still lacking.

Internet access
Several participants said that technological development such as ease of accessing the internet is the factor that influences the occurrence of plagiarism. One of the reasons someone commits plagiarism is because of the available information, especially with the internet (Debnath, 2016). As we know, nowadays, everyone is using a smartphone and laptop because it is easier to find information, especially for students in completing assignments or theses. And also because of the copy-paste system that makes students practice in completing the assignment and thesis. As participant D stated: I think internet access is also a factor that makes it easy for people to plagiarize. It is very easy for us to copy and paste from the internet. You know the internet provides a lot of information, a lot of journals on it, so people don't have to read the journals, they just copy and paste the statement and change a few words of the statement. And I have done it in my thesis.
A similar perception revealed by participant C: Plagiarism behavior is currently also supported by technological advances, one of which is the global internet network. We can access any material. And also supported by the copy-paste system. To be honest I often use the system to make it easier for me to do my assignments.
Participant H also stated: I think the information available on the internet is one of the causes of plagiarism. Now everything is practical. In the past, we went to the library looking for books and it took a long time. But now we can just type a keyword that we want and it is immediately available on our laptop.
It can be concluded that plagiarism can increase because of the internet. This happens because on the internet there are millions of information that we can access anytime and anywhere.

Run out of ideas
Students admit that sometimes they run out of ideas to make a sentence, for example, like an opening sentence. So it makes them commit plagiarism. As a participant I said: I did plagiarism because I ran out of ideas in writing a thesis. For example, when writing the beginning of a paragraph from the background of the study, I am confused about how to start so I take sentences from other journals that are similar to my topic.
Participant D also said "I do it when I don't have the idea to make up a suitable sentence". Based on the excerpts above, we know that an idea is very important in writing a thesis. When someone loses an idea, he/she will be confused about how to arrange sentences correctly. So because of that, the students chose to plagiarize.

Discussion
The current study was designed to investigate the types of plagiarism and the level of plagiarism that appear in the 2019 batch English students' theses of UIN Ar-Raniry, and the triggering factors encouraging these students to commit plagiarism.
To address the question, the researchers used Plagiarism Checker X software to identify the types of plagiarism committed by the students in their theses. This software can detect parts of the student thesis containing plagiarized works and display the original source. Based on the results of the examination using the Plagiarism Checker X software, the researcher found two types of plagiarism; word for word and mosaic plagiarism. The research findings showed that some participants used the word plagiarism in their thesis. The participants copy and paste sentences or paragraphs from someone's writing without giving credit. According to Randhawa et al. (2015), wordfor-word plagiarism is the act of copying every word from the original text, without making any changes, without specifying the source. This type is the same as copy-paste and often occurs in the world of education.
The second type of plagiarism that was committed by the students was mosaic plagiarism. The findings showed that five participants used this type of plagiarism. Mosaic plagiarism occurs when a student takes a sentence from a source, and then changes or adds several words in the sentence without acknowledging the source. Participant 1, for example, copied a sentence from a source and then deleted some words at the beginning of the sentence and replaced them with her wording. While participant 4, copied a sentence, and then added three words at the beginning of the sentence. Both of them did not mention the source of the sentence. The findings are in line with the result of research conducted by Randhawa et al. (2015) who reiterated the common practice of mosaic plagiarism widely used by students.
With regard to the level of plagiarism committed by the students participating in this study, the researcher found that the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch English students' thesis of UIN Ar-Raniry as indicated by Plagiarism Checker X was still in the low-level plagiarism range. Students' complete theses were analyzed by using Plagiarism Checker X. Findings of the study indicate that six theses were detected at the low-level plagiarism range, namely TA (19%) TB (12%) TC (9%) TH (17%), TI (18%), and TJ (15%). While four theses were detected in the medium-level plagiarism range, namely TD (22%), TE (24%), TF (20%), and TG (24%).
In relation to the factors triggering English education students to commit plagiarism, the researchers found five contributing factors; namely poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, internet access, and lack of ideas. Poor time management relates to students' inability to organize their time to work on assignments given by their lecturers. As stated by several participants, they wanted to graduate as soon as possible and were willing to plagiarize to be able to register for the final examination. On this note, Selemani, Chawinga, and Dube (2018) who investigated cases of plagiarism at Mzuzu University suggested that one of the factors the students committed to deliberate plagiarism was poor time management.
The second triggering factor is laziness. From the results of the interview, some participants argued that their laziness in writing a thesis encouraged them to plagiarize the works of others. They did want to research and read articles that could be used as references in their theses, so they took a short cut. They argued that some journals have sentences that are difficult to understand, so they chose to copy and paste the sentence and added a few of their own words, and claimed it as theirs.
The third factor is poor paraphrasing skills. Nine of ten participants agreed that poor paraphrasing skills cause them to plagiarize. The participants stated that paraphrasing skills are important and having good paraphrasing skills can prevent students from committing plagiarism. The findings of this study confirmed that lack of paraphrasing skills resulted in students' inability to correctly paraphrase the works of others. They usually changed a few words from a sentence. As a result, when their theses were checked, by using plagiarism software, plagiarism was detected. This finding is similar to the study conducted by Greenberger, et al. (2016) who explore how full-time online instructors perceive plagiarism due to misunderstanding and plagiarism factors. They found that two main factors cause students to commit accidental plagiarism, one of which is poor paraphrasing skills.
The fourth factor is easy access to online sources. Technological advances and the internet help students to access online materials anytime and anywhere, helping them to complete their assignments. Unprecedented technological development has, among other things, contributed to the problem of plagiarism (Bahadori, Izadi, & Hoseinpourfard, 2012). On this issue, Habiburrahim (2015) argues that "today, learners can freely read thousands of books, articles, documents, and other significant reports online" (p. 6). One of the participants said he took other people's ideas on the internet and claimed it as his writing. Another participant said technological advances such as the copy-paste system made it easy for students to plagiarize. Risquez, O'Dwyer, & Ledwith (2011) emphasize the importance of technology enhanced learning, such as the use of the internet, to develop students' research and writing skills to avoid plagiarism. The internet can be positive and negative, so we should be wise in using it.
And the last factor encouraging students to plagiarize is running out of ideas. Two out of ten participants suggested that when they ran out of ideas, they tended to look to online resources, which often resulted in plagiarism. As writing is a skill to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings in writing, having ideas is one of the important components in writing. The participant said that when she lost the idea of writing a thesis, she would feel confused and stressed. So doing plagiarism is the solution.

. Conclusion
The current study aimed at examining factors influencing students' plagiarism practice, analyzing the types of plagiarism appeared in their theses, and determining the level of plagiarism in their theses.
The result showed that there were several factors triggering students to plagiarize. Poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, east internet access, and running out of ideas were mentioned as the reasons for encouraging students to commit plagiarism. There were two types of plagiarism that appeared in the theses, namely word for word plagiarism and mosaic plagiarism.
While participants of the study were detected to plagiarize some parts of their theses, the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch of English Language Education students' of UIN Ar-Raniry, as indicated by Plagiarism Checker X, was still in the low-level plagiarism category. This can be seen from the results of the similarity index the participants' theses. Six theses were detected at low-level plagiarism (less than 20%), namely TA (19%), TB (12%), TC (9%), TH (17%), TI (18%), and TJ (15%). Meanwhile, the other four theses were detected at the medium-level plagiarism level (between 20% and 30%), namely TD (22%), TE (24%), TF (20%), and TG (24%).