Putting A Price On Integrity
Sandy didn’t know what to do. Her long awaited biology final was coming up in only two days and she didn’t get around to studying even one quarter of her study guide. She had two choices: one was to fail her exam and not be able to major in Biology any more, or she could pass and go to the next level of Biology class. She wondered how she could possibly pass the final without radiant very much about the topic. A light bulb turned on in her head. She would cheat off of her best friend Kathy. Her friend, in fact, “owed” Sandy. Sandy let her swindle numerous times from her history homework, so she conception it would only be fair if Kathy, who had been studying for the Biology final for weeks, let her cheat off her test. Both Kathy and Sandy averaged a “B” on the final. Was this the best route for Sandy to take? Was Kathy good in letting Sandy copy off of her test? Why do so many college students cheat so often nowadays? The shifting definition of cheating in colleges is a growing issue in our society that needs to be resolved. Through selections from the text, “Next Text” by Anne Kress and Suellyn Winkle we will gaze why there is a shift in the definition of cheating and what types of technology can be ragged to diminish cheating in colleges all together.
Cheating is taking and using anything that you did not create yourself to gain ahead. The shifting definition of cheating may have begun in the early 1980’s when President Ronald Regan was sworn into office, even though cheating has always existed. With a new President, the United States also had a shift in how it was run and the values it held. Nowadays, success is measured by your income and work not by your own standards of excellence. “In today’s competitive economy, where success and job security can’t be taken for granted, its increasingly tempting to leave your ethics at home every morning. Students are cheating more now that getting a good education is a matter of economic life or death” (Callahan, 21). Students feel that they need to cheat in order to do well in something that is mandatory to their success in the future. People are now cheating on runt things, like pop quizzes and other assessments that are not counted towards nor have no impact on the grade. The norms have changed in a way that people need to be unethical in order to succeed in our modern day world.
Cheating in schools is becoming an epidemic. Students, more then ever, are using “academic dishonesty” as another tool. Cheating has become like a dictionary or calculator which makes finding something a lot easier.
Texting is probably the most effective way of cheating for college students. It is easier to hide a cellular phone underneath a desk or behind a book than it is to cheat in other ways like leaning over your desk to look at someone else’s paper. Teachers, fortunately, are catching onto this trend. “‘We started looking for students with one arm on the desk and one under it [using their cell phones],’ reports Justin, Texas, high school principal Jim Chadwell – banning technology in the classroom can create its own problems. Post 9/11, many parents insist their children carry cell phones so they can be easily reached” (Heyman, 37). Even though teachers may want cell phones to be banned from schools it would be hard to conclude because of the unknown dangers in our world. Perhaps, cheating is just another way for students to deal with their fear of real life.
Exact life is coming straight toward college students and high school students. With approximately four to eight years left until they have to find a job that can support them and their future families; they have a lot of pressure on their shoulders. For this reason, they feel a necessity to have to be successful in school in order to find this job that will give them the financial wait on that need in their future endeavors. Cheating is a way that helps relieve the fear of what tomorrow may bring. Some students do not even believe what they do should be categorized as cheating. Research assistant Jason Stephens describes cheating in high school and in college. “Research on cheating has shown over and over that most students do cheat…Research in high schools show that two thirds of students cheat on tests and 90 percent cheat on homework. The figures are almost as high among college students” (Stephens, 40). The purpose of cheating, however, can backlash at any given second. Even though cheating offers help to students, in an unethical way, professors and writers are now cracking down harder than ever on academic dishonesty with the use of technology.
From the iPOD Nano to sending pictures via Internet, technology is getting more and more sophisticated. Cheating will soon start diminishing because of technological advances like the new text-comparison software. In an excerpt from, “Rise of the Plagiosphere: How New Tools to Detect Plagiarism Could Induce Mass Writer’s Block,” Ed Tenner,
“A small handful of entrepreneurs have developed programs that search the open Web and proprietary databases, as well as e-books, for suspicious matches…Teachers can submit student papers electronically for comparison with these databases, including the retained texts of previously submitted papers. Those passages that have resemblance to each other are distinguished with color highlighting in a double-pane view” (Heyman, 52).
With the help of these types of technology, schools can become an environment that is more unbiased.
The changing definition of cheating and the types of technology that can be used to diminish cheating in college all together have been shown through selections from the textbook, “Next Text” by Anne Kress and Suellyn Winkle. Hopefully, this wave of cheating as a means to accumulate by will fade. Even though it may be impossible to end academic dishonesty completely, at least everyone will know that there is technology that can stop it. When you are caught, you will be punished.
Works Cited
Callahan, Edward. “Everyone Does it.” Next Text: Making Connections Across and
Beyond the Disciplines. By Anne Kress and Suellyn Winkle. Boston: Bedford/
St. Martin’s, 2008.
Heyman, J.D., et al. “Psssst… What’s the answer? “ Next Text: Making Connections
Across and Beyond the Disciplines. By Anne Kress and Suellyn Winkle. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.
Stephens, Jason. “Justice or Just Us? What to Do about Cheating.” Next Text: Making
Connections Across and Beyond the Disciplines. By Anne Kress and Suellyn
Winkle. Boston/St. Martin’s, 2008.
Tenner, Ed. “Rise of the Plagiosphere: How modern tools to detect plagiarism could induce
Mass writer’s block.” Next Text: Making Connections Across and Beyond the
Disciplines. By Anne Kress and Suellyn Winkle. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
2008.
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