Academic Dishonesty: A Plague on Our Profession

Abstract

We live in a time when corporate misdeeds are being exposed at alarming rates; when accounting and auditing schemes are coming to light with frightening frequency, (1) and when political claims, promises, and assurances are subject to ridicule and doubt. (2) These lapses in ethics and honesty have not suddenly sprung upon us; developed over time. Some of the origins of such cultural decay begin in the schools where plagiarism is sadly common and where such dishonesty seems not to be rooted out emphatically and methodically. Plagiarism is intellectual theft, no less a moral offense than would the theft of a car, money, jewels would be. While intellectual theft is less tangible than other theft forms and other species of academic dishonesty, it is nonetheless very real. Many plagiarizers claim, when caught, that everyone is doing it, not a big deal, didn't mean to cheat. (3) Such statements suggest that too few people know exactly what plagiarism is; are unaware of rules against plagiarism; and/or have learned through benign neglect from teachers, school administrators, school boards, and parents that plagiarism is not a big deal. Plagiarism and other academic dishonesty take many forms, some familiar to all; others less common. (4) Some of the more familiar such behaviors include: copying test responses from a classmate; taking exams for others; doing another's assignments; not citing others' work included in course papers, take home exams, other assignments; 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 written materials with made up sources; and getting exam copies in advance from accomplice sources. Other academic misconduct sometimes accompanies plagiaristic practices which border on equate with criminal activity such as: breaking into teacher offices/files to gain surreptitious access to tests answer keys; sabotaging peers' ongoing work experiments; and gaining illegal access to school computer data bases in order to alter official grade records. The author has taken active interest in plagiarism over the years, serving on students conduct code committees over the past twenty years and raising the issue in ethics, persuasion, and interpersonal communication classes as a vehicle of instruction in these courses. Academic dishonesty is familiar to students as validated each year by an almost universal show of hands when students are asked personally know others who cheat and/or have personally witnessed cheating. When the topic of cheating is raised in class, few students express heightened interest; many students claim not to have been confronted with the issue by parents previous teachers except when personally caught plagiarizing. When students have been asked to respond to whether not would expose students knew were cheating, most report would emphatically not report such behavior. Their typical rationales for refusing to report cheating are: not my that's the teacher's job; they are not hurting me; only are potentially hurt by cheating; cannot prove were cheating, so I'll stay silent; if need to cheat to pass, who am I to cause them to fail? (5) This benign neglect of cheating has remained consistent in the author's classes and in individual conversations with students over the past fifteen years. In many conversations with middle and high school teachers and students, similar responses are given. Teachers at all levels seem to take one of the following stances when probed about their views on plagiarism: (1) it's too dangerous legally to charge students with cheating; It's too much work taking me away from my regular work to bother with investigating, reporting, and defending my accusations; Students will just cheat another way punished and/or I'll just have them repeat my class next year I discover and report such behavior; or fear I will not be backed up by administrators, peers, parents I do actively act on cheating in my classroom. …