Plagiarism has been an increasingly popular topic in modern times. It is almost as if no one is a hundred percent certain as to what is cheating and what is not. Blurred understandings have created total chaos in these realms. Some people think that such values of honesty and integrity have been lost. Four authors aim to explain these issues, and possible connections to the loss of academic integrity. Cheung in the article “The Fading Honor Code” describes how these expectations have nearly vanished from the minds of students. In the article “Why Colleges Should Ditch Honor Codes” Greenberg makes many assertions that back up what Cheung claims in some way.
Basically, honor codes are fuzzy and unclear and should be entirely erased from schools altogether. Gabriel’s article ‘Lines on Plagiarism Blur for Students in the Digital Age” discusses how the internet can even complicate such issues of academic integrity and might just be the cause of this uncertainty as well. Lastly, Minkel’s article “’Too Hard _Not_ to Cheat in the Internet Age?’ standard guidelines to not plagiarizing are difficult to understand or distinguish. In all four articles, each author tries to pinpoint why it is happening as well as what caused it. Gabriel, in his article, reveals to audiences two cases where university students did not fully understand why they plagiarized.
In the first case, which occurred in the University of Maryland, a student copied an entire term paper from Wikipedia and when questioned, he claimed he did not know it was cheating. That same student went on to say that the information was considered common knowledge and common knowledge does not have to be cited a specific way. The next example came from Rhode Island College. The webpage in question did not have author information, so the student believed he did not have to cite it. Gabriel continuously discusses these topics throughout the entirety of the article. Many professional writing tutors and plagiarism officials in schools are claiming that students do not necessarily find difficulty in writing citations, rather students do not grasp the idea that plagiarism is wrong in itself.
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The students simply do not take these accounts seriously, which is more than likely half of the problem. (Gabriel). Minkel goes on to discuss how it is almost difficult not to cheat in the internet age. She claims that most students are not even aware that they are doing it either. The author takes a good perspective of introducing audiences to a relevant idea. This is the example of LimeWire. LimeWire was a music downloading site that many people utilized several years back. It allowed for free but illegal downloading of songs. Although it is necessarily “stealing”, most people do not see the wrong in that.
It helps connect the ideas of cheating via online outlets. Minkel also adds insight into her own experiences with plagiarism. Being that she had only graduated three years. She has a good standpoint on such topics. However, she does not justify that a university student could actually believe that Wikipedia is an appropriate source to cite. An anonymous student claimed that in the digital age, plagiarism should ultimately be acceptable. (Minkel). “The Fading Honor Code” by Jessica Cheung begins by discussing actual numbers of anonymous tips of cheating. Some 35 percent admitted to this, however, there are certainly more. This was out of a pool of nearly 377 students.
Cheung shows how the honor code is fading, and in some respects how it has already disappeared in school settings. She also discovers that although this is happening on such a large scale, the reasoning behind it is expectations. She explains how many students are feeling pressured to excel in class, and that these expectations and stress are making them feel as if there are no other choices. Even in the cases of witnessing another student cheating, witnesses are asked to report information. The honor code demands so much, and students often can not back it up (Cheung).
According to Greenberg: “It’s clear that honor codes fail to stop cheating on college campuses. In a 2005-2006 survey by academic-integrity expert Donald McCabe, half of students at honor-code schools reported that they had engaged in some form of cheating” (Greenberg). The author goes on to proclaim that honor codes in general should simply be eliminated from the schools policies. Greenberg makes arguments of why colleges should ultimately ditch honor codes. By explaining how such codes are unclear and confusing, she makes her points. Most students have difficulty understanding what information is cheating and what is not, making the overall process of research a nightmare.
Even when some students do not try to cheat, they are still guilty of it. Greenberg reveals the many struggles of keeping the honor code (Greenberg). In each of these accounts, the authors discussed very similar topics. Whether it was the cause, effect, or overall mindset of students, each author had a different perspective on the topic. People think that honor code, and plagiarism in general are not well defined. That is because so many different students, from universities all over the country are having difficulties with such topics. The internet and digital age are being used as possible explanations for such this blurred honor system. Whether or not that is true, each author, to some degree, revealed connections.
