The Consequences of Cheating in Academic Settings: A Call for Responsibility

Cheating is cheating yourself

Cheating on school work is never justifiable. Students are responsible for their own work, and it is unfair to cheat in any form. Teachers grade students on their own academic ability and if a student is covertly or openly cheating that is considered infringement of being a student. Being a student requires personal interpretation, and analysis. Copying someone else’s work is disadvantageous. If cheating becomes a regular practice to someone it can be harmful to their future.

Plagiarism is a major form of cheating that is distinctly forbidden. If students are not accountable for their own work, then they should be punished for it.

The purpose of going to school is to learn and be able to consume new information. Copying someone else’s work does not serve this purpose and is useless regards to learning new material. For example, if a student is assigned to take notes on a certain reading, and hand in the same worded notes as another student it is possible that one student copied the other.

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If they worked on the notes together, and spent time to word it in the same way, this would not be considered cheating. However, if this was the case then the students should clarify with their teacher that the notes were worked on together. If this was not the case, this would be considered cheating and it should not be tolerated. From experience, I once allowed one of my friends to look over my class notes.

As I graciously gave them the paper, I didn’t think that my friend would copy the notes word for word. A few days later, after handing in the notes, we got them back. I looked down at my paper and saw on the top a zero written in red marker. I looked over at my friends paper which read the same grade. The teacher had both of us stay after class, and told us that he didn’t know who was responsible for taking the notes, and that either way it was cheating. As the year proceeded, I could tell my teacher was always skeptical of work that my friend and I would hand in following this incident. Cheating can lose values of trust, which I felt it did between my teacher and I. Since that day, I have not willingly handed out any of my papers. Since school in beneficial to an individual, cheating defeats this purpose.

One of my teachers in high school would continuously repeat the saying “When you cheat, you cheat yourself.” I have seen people cheat their way through high school which does not better themselves in any way. For example, someone in my graduating class had the advantage of being one of the best football players in our conference, and was praised for it by my school and town. When ivy league schools started to recruit him, he figured he had to step his academic game up. How he did this was unfair because he regularly would copy other people’s work. Students would have no problem handing over papers to him, oblivious to what would happen to him in the long run. This phenomenal football player committed to Brown, I knew he had it coming. Since cheating became a regular practice to him, he would not be able to keep up with the academic work load at Brown. When asking a friend how he was doing, I heard that he was considering to transfer after the first semester. I assumed that this was because he did not feel like he could handle the school work since cheating had become part of his nature. In addition to cheating to yourself, this practice also includes false accomplishment. This football player had the privilege of attending Brown University, but his actions of getting there were unfair. He was a fully qualified football player for the University, but his academic level was a fraud. He might feel proud of this accomplishment for getting into and attending Brown, but really he is lying to himself. Cheating should never be tolerated, let alone regularly done because it results in negative effects such as what happened to this football player.

Plagiarism is a major form of cheating that is frowned upon. Plagiarism is intolerable at colleges, and has detrimental consequences. In every one of my syllabus’s for my college course, plagiarism is addressed. It is clearly stated that if students are caught for plagiarizing, they will be penalized and consequences may even result in expulsion of the course. Plagiarism is defined as the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own. It is unfair for one to claim that their work is someone else’s which is why a student is punished for it if they are caught. I have always been taught to make sure that I cite my sources if I have copied or taken information from another source. I am aware of the consequences of plagiarism so I am always careful when taking information from other sources. I have had a friend in high school that got caught for plagiarism. There was no way for her to defend herself for the action, so she received a zero on this paper. There are no excuses for plagiarism which is why it is never justifiable.

Cheating in relationships usually results in break ups. This is significant and similar to cheating on school work because as you could conclude from reading this paper, there are no advantages of cheating. One might feel that they will never get caught for such an action, but they themselves cannot feel satisfied for their work since it is not their own. My experience of handing out my paper to my friend made me more aware of the outcomes which could occur due to this action. This is why I have never cheated since this has happened. My observation of the football player at Brown demonstrated the false representation he played in regards to his academic achievements. The severe repercussions plagiarism creates are enforced at schools and universities throughout the world. Cheating is never acceptable on school work since there is nothing good that comes out of it.