Iranian ESP Students’ and Professors’ Perceptions of Plagiaristic Behaviors in Academic Writing: The Case of Veterinarian Course

Considering the significance of writing academically in an international context by veterinary students and a low emphasis on writing honesty in this academic community, the current study aimed to investigate the perceptions of ESP students and their veterinarian professors at the Islamic Azad University of Babol toward plagiarism. To this end, this study attempted to find first, how students have defined plagiarism and what their reasons for doing plagiarism were. It also aimed to explore the causes of the students’ unethical behaviors from their professors’ perspectives. Thus, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 ESP students along with 10 ESP professors. The participants’ responses were analyzed by using thematic analysis. Findings related to the first research question indicated that the students could just vaguely define plagiarism. According to the findings of the second research question, the students reported a list of reasons that included: Unawareness of writing rules, lack of enough experience, lack of motivation, and their tutor ignorance in detecting plagiarism. Regarding the results of the third research question, the professors presented various important reasons for plagiaristic behaviors of the students such as the students’ indolence, underestimating the value of honest behaviors by policymakers, and lack of any writing course in the veterinarian educational program.