21 Comments

1. I cheated a lot in high school, never in college. I’d like to think that joining the church had something to do with this, but who knows. . .

   Comment by Julie in Austin — 3/3/2006 @ 3:37 pm

2. I think there is an increase of cheating for a number of reasons. First, I think that society at large views it as acceptable. I also think the focus on regurgition style learning adds to this. Why learn something for no good reason? The hallmark of liberal western education is the ability to think critically…it is hard to cheat in that arena.

   Do Military officials get expelled for adultery to this day, Craig?

   I also think that most University and High School teachers don’t enforce the rule. When was the last time someone was expelled for cheating?

   Comment by J. Stapley — 3/3/2006 @ 4:15 pm

3. I personally don’t know anyone that was expelled for cheating. I probably cheated a few times in High School.

   I am currently attending the University of Phoenix Online, and it’s amazing how many people just copy and paste their assignments. UOPX has an online tool that searches the internet where you can put a paper into it and it will automatically search the net and determine how much of it is plagerized and where it was plagerized from it the source was on the Net. You’d be suprised how many times you find plagerism this way. Sometimes with your own work and you didn’t realize it.

   I think that one of the main reasons that plagerism is easier today and more prevailant is because it is so easy to get stuff off the net.

   Comment by Ian M. Cook — 3/3/2006 @ 4:37 pm

4. I cheated a LOT in jr. high school, maybe a couple times early in high school but never after that. Ironically my grades got better when I started being honest.

   Comment by Rusty — 3/3/2006 @ 5:47 pm

5. While military officers are prosecuted for adultry currently, there is a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. They will only prosecute if the evidence of such an honor violation is pushed into their faces.

   I have often caught student’s cheating. “Cutting and pasting”, downloading whole papers, as well as cheating on exams. The result is typically a failing grade from my class with a permanent annotation on their transcripts. University punnishment varies. Most are not usually expelled, but have some kind of “cheating senisitivity training”.

   I did have a starting defensive back who decided to download his term paper word for word from the internet. Needless to say he failed the class. He did, however, start in the Rose Bowl three weeks later. He also retook the class…from me!

   Comment by Craig S. — 3/3/2006 @ 5:51 pm

6. I have often caught student’s cheating. “Cutting and pasting”, downloading whole papers, as well as cheating on exams. The result is typically a failing grade from my class with a permanent annotation on their transcripts

   I remember being warned of this in English classes, but I never understood how you could possibly get caught if you did it. I’ve never checked, but I assume there are thousands of papers available on the subjects students are often asked to write about. Either TA’s are surfing the net 12 hours a day, or teachers are getting lucky when they catch their students.

   Comment by jjohnsen — 3/3/2006 @ 11:32 pm

7. You would be surprised how blatant students are. I caught the footbal player when his final product was exceptional…light years beyond anything that he had done in the rest of the semester.

   When students cut and paste, the tone (feel) of the paper changes. When you feel wierd about a paper, you simply google a phrase and it usually appears (gotta love google).

   You know, I am amazed at the lengths that students will go to. I had a student peel the lable off their water bottle, print crib note on the inside, and then paste it back on the bottle. The student then would read through the water on the inside. Add to that printing on the bill of their baseball caps, on various body parts…If they would only put in half of the effort into studying they wouldn’t need to cheat.

   Comment by Craig S. — 3/3/2006 @ 11:45 pm

8. The longer I think about it, the more occasions I can remember when I cheated in one way or another, and I answered Yes to the survey, although none of the instances that I can remember so far actually matches the definition given in the first paragraph.

   On the other hand, I am a reasonably conscientious driver, but if you asked me whether I had ever broken a traffic law, I would have to admit that I done so on thousands of occasions.

   There are probably a lot of similar questions about sins and personal failings that could get nearly universal Yes answers.

     Have you ever lost your temper?

     Have you ever let someone down who was counting on you?

     …

   Cheating naturally has a special place in honor codes, but even if you have never cheated, or if you have completely put academic cheating behind you, it doesn’t mean that you are living a completely honorable life. My guess is that we all have a long way to go.

   Comment by Steve S — 3/4/2006 @ 1:21 am

9. When I was in high school, I was far more susceptible to peer pressure than I am now (at least I hope so). I was always considered fairly intelligent and so, while I never cheated personally, I sometimes helped others cheat. At the time, I was just fitting in. I never wrote other people’s papers or anything; I left a spanish book open on the floor beside my desk so others could cheat. It seemed okay at the time because I wasn’t actually cheating. I only remember doing it a couple of times, but in general, I wish I hadn’t. Now, I don’t feel like I can honestly tell people that I have never cheated and, as an aspiring academic, that is a problem.

   Comment by John C. — 3/4/2006 @ 11:06 am

10. As a teacher, I also google phrases I am suspicious of–it really helps parents beleive that their darling child has actually copied if you have a print-out to compare side by side.

    In reflection, I now do my best to convert my students to the task–to convince them that is it worthwhile for them to actually do–and I hope this works for some who would otherwise cheat. It is harder to do, though, for the assignments my school or district insists students do–I often question the value of those, too.

    Comment by ESO — 3/4/2006 @ 2:30 pm

11. In my graduate research group, a student manipulated data improperly. This was discovered after his dissertation had been accepted and he was still hanging around, doing some editing and waiting to take a position he had been offered. He left without his degree, and his letters of recommendation were rescinded. It was a painful, ugly thing to be around, like a tragic death.

    Comment by John Mansfield — 3/6/2006 @ 10:21 am

12. In 2004, the University of Konstanz stripped Jan Hendrik Schön of his Ph.D. degree even though there was no connection between his graduate school work and his data falsification at Bell Labs. His dishonour after leaving Konstanz was sufficient cause for the University to disown him.

    Comment by John Mansfield — 3/6/2006 @ 10:36 am

13. Craig,

    I read a post that you recently wrote on this blog about infertility (dated back to Jan of this year), and I was moved. Being a member of the church and experiencing infertility, I would love to speak with you regarding your experiences. You can find the link to my blog here, with my e-mail address on my blog or on my post here.

    Nicole

    Comment by Nicole — 3/6/2006 @ 2:01 pm

14. I did have a poem my daughter wrote get challenged for cheating. Of course since I’d sat down and written it from scratch with her and she was able to explain the vocabulary, they backed off.

    Had a similar thing happen with a freshman in the writing lab. She did *one* incredible item — well the equal of most people’s master’s projects.

    When she came to me I told her to get me twenty examples of her other work. All twenty were exactly the same tone and rhythm of the suspect item, just no where near as good.

    With the other work as a sample portfolio, the teacher who was going to flunk her backed down.

    But, if she hadn’t been able to produce the material (or, in my daughter’s case, been able to explain the vocabulary and how she picked it out while working with her dad), she would have been toast.

    Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — 3/6/2006 @ 4:11 pm

15. BTW, where were you teaching?

    Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — 3/9/2006 @ 6:50 pm

16. I teach at a major midwestern university…Dorothy would have felt right at home here.

    Comment by Craig S. — 3/9/2006 @ 7:45 pm

17. Is it Kansas State? You mentioned that you taught a football player that played in the Rose Bowl. It can’t be KU. I can’t remember the last time they went to a BCS Game. Kansas State has a decenent team, so it could be them The only other team that I can think of that has been to the Rose Bowl recently that fits the major midwestern univeristy description is OU. So, my guess is either K State or OU.

    Comment by Katie — 3/10/2006 @ 10:53 am

18. Katie,

    Brownie points to you! Prior to coming to my current University, I taught at OU.

    Comment by Craig S. — 3/10/2006 @ 11:56 am

19. Hi Craig,
    I’m Brett, Katie’s husband. I posted under my wife’s name when I guessed where you taught. How long ago did you teach at OU? Katie and I are living in Norman right now while I’m finishing my undergrad degree in Letters. It doesn’t surpise me at all that an OU football player would start a bowl game despite academic misconduct. OU needs to get its priorities straight.

    Comment by Brett — 3/10/2006 @ 2:00 pm

20. I’ve found the problem is two-fold. One thing is that some students come to college seriously under-prepared. Most of the students that I have that plagiarize depite the many possible repurcussions do so because they are completely overwhelmed. They honestly do not believe there is any way to meet some expectation that has been placed on them. They either feel that they are incapable of passing your class without cheating, or there has been some unreasonable expectation placed on them (Under-prepared students whose parents expect a 4.0–students who must work 40 hours and take 19 credits). I try to identify these students early and help them realize both what unreasonable expectations are and that they can meet reasonable expectations. This has been the single biggest aid in cutting down on plagiarism. I think there has been too much leniency in the system posing as mercy. I for one have spent too little time thinking about the assignments I give and how prepared my students are for them. Not that I’m in favor of watering down the assignments. I just think it’s important to make sure students have a way to succeed, much more helpful for everyone concerned than the give ‘em one more chance approach.
    Second, paradoxically, is that while the system purports to be stringently against academic dishonestly, it also makes it very hard to enforce. As #6 points out, while students often plagiarize blatantly, and while I can find most plagiarized papers in 2 minutes on the internet, the standard of proof is still finding the paper. It isn’t enough that the student can’t produce anything approaching the quality of the paper. It isn’t enough that they can’t discuss the paper or its ideas. If I can’t find the paper, the unspoken assumption is that there is no other evidence that can possibly be used to show that this is not the student’s work. Perhaps they suddenly had a burst of inspiration and language ability in the middle of the night and wrote a publishable paper on Hamlet. I understand, as several have pointed out, that students sometimes produce better work than they usually do, but when huge gaps between their obvious lack of language skills and the work they are producing make no difference, the commonsense notion that the paper will be obviously plagiarized looses its force. Then, either the student just doesn’t realize how easy it will be to Google their paper or they correctly assume that if they go to the trouble of finding an obscure article in the library in a hard-copy journal, it will be very difficult to find.

    Comment by Steve H — 3/12/2006 @ 10:48 am

21. I never cheated so I could pass, school was easy for me. But I let others cheat off me, it was no big deal to me at the time. Now I’d say, “hell, no, you snooze, you lose.”

    One time, just for fun, I made up a book for a book report. I read constantly, I could easily have done a book report, but I wanted to see if I could get away with it. I did, got an A.

    Comment by annegb — 3/12/2006 @ 11:36 am