Academic Dishonesty

It is impossible for someone to go through schooling without being guilty of, or at least witnessing, cheating. Academic dishonesty is taking credit for information or material that is not yours, or using certain resources when it is not appropriate. For a long time now, many educational institutions have made an effort by creating a honors system to cut down on the many forms of cheating, but have had little luck. There are too many temptations and stresses on students to make the act of cheating completely extinct. However, there are motions that can be taken to further decrease the amount of academic dishonesty in either a campus or high school.

As mentioned, every student has either taken part of or has been a bystander of some type of cheating. Some of those types of cheating are stealing papers or tests from a professor, buying papers online, plagerism, as well looking and copying off of your peers' test, quizzes, homework, etc. Many would go to say that the least serious, of the previously listed, would be copying homework, for the simple fact that most homework is worth few points and just "busy-work". But either way, cheating is cheating.

Some may also go to say that there are a few exceptions such as: borrowing old quizzes or exams to study off of from previous students of a shared course or unknowingly plagerizing (by using resources and not fully rewording the information). These are instances where I would agree that under these circumstances a person is not at fault of cheating.
Nowadays, schools have students agree to a honors system, but this measure has not been overly successful. There are further actions that need to be taken to minimize the cheating at these institutions. For example, if a school insists on a honors code, the expectations need to be clearly clarified and it needs to be fully enforced, even on first time offenses. Proctoring of exams, multiple versions of exams, professors and administrators speaking up when suspecting any type of academic dishonesty, using plagerism software, and/or more severe consequences once a student is found guilty are additional motions that can be taken.

Cheating is a serious hindrance, and something needs to be done to diminish the many occurances in all educational facilities. By acknowledging the different types of academic dishonesty, and then taking action, the numbers should decrease. Even if very slowly, it will have a positive effect on the student as well as the institutions in the long run. Students must also come to the realization the cheating has not one single benefit. Although it may seem much easier than doing work on one's own, it will only risk their education, their future job, their admission into a graduate/professional school. In the long run, it is truly not worth the gamble.

-Karly Callham