Academics
...and institutions of higher education. Academic dishonesty includes "cheating" and "plagiarism," the theft of ideas and other forms of intellectual property whether they are published or not. Through the course of this paper we will glance at various ways students cheat academically, the characteristics of cheating, who cheats, why do students cheat, and how to avoid academic dishonesty.
Too few students know exactly what academic dishonesty is. They are unaware of the rules against cheating and or they have learned through benign neglect from teachers, school administrators, school boards, and parents that academic cheating is not a big deal. According to Petress (2003), PhD., Professor of Communications, University of Maine, “Academic dishonesty is intellectual theft, no less a moral offense than would be the theft of a car, money, or jewels would be” (p.624).
Academic dishonesty takes many forms, some familiar to all; others less common. Some of the more familiar such behaviors include: plagiarism; copying test responses from a classmate; taking exams for others; doing another’s assignments; not citing others’ work and purchasing research papers from companies too willing to sell these to unscrupulous students. Some other less familiar dishonesty methods include fabrication of quotes and other spoken or written materials with made up sources and getting exam copies in advance from accomplice sources.
According to Petress (2003), cheating is a mindset; it grows like a cancer. When one student succeeds at cheating, word of success is bound to surface among peers. Such behavior is contagious; others will inevitable follow and spread like a disease unless eradicated (p. 626).
Who Cheats
The subject of cheating itself can be a very broad topic. The matter of who actually cheats is even more of a broader topic within itself. The...
View Full Essay
