Greetings and welcome to the Bad Leadership 2011 Blog. Please post your blog entry (250 words) and respond to at least one other classmate's blog. I look forward to the conversation.
To say that nobody cheats at Washington University is short-sighted. Needless to say, many of us probably already heard of incidents about plagiarism. I, for example, personally know a student who failed a class because he copied another person’s answer during a major exam. So to answer the question, “Is cheating on a college campus a big problem?”, I can answer with certainty that cheating is not only a big problem, but also a prevalent activity that seems to occur in every university in the nation.
Although many might argue against my assertion, cheating to me is either black or white, and this comes from my experience as a Writing mentor-in-training. Throughout our training sessions, much of our focus is put on the distinction between mentoring and leading, which is a fancy term for “giving the answers.” From current writing mentors, I learned that I should not give any new ideas; instead, I was told to focus on encouraging the development of an ongoing idea, one that was originally presented by the person getting help. This approach parallels Weldy’s argument that a tutor must “never touch a pen or pencil to a student’s paper” (3), but it also defines the clear boundary between getting help and plagiarizing. At a freshman level writing course, more specifically Writing 1, I believe that most, if not all, plagiarisms are intentional. Of course, we have to consider the context in which the act was carried out, but usually I find that it is an urgent response to a time constraint. Without careful planning, workload can amass, and to a stressed student, plagiarism might seem like a shortcut.
Unfortunately, cheating and plagiarism are inevitable, as proven by McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield. The implementation of honor codes does decrease the rate of cheating, but I think that communication is ultimately the key to eliminating cheating. When in doubt, a student should talk to a professor in a timely manner and seek guidance. In the end, it is in the student’s hand to take advantage of the available resources, or resort to an easy copy-paste the night before the deadline.
To say that nobody cheats at Washington University is short-sighted. Needless to say, many of us probably already heard of incidents about plagiarism. I, for example, personally know a student who failed a class because he copied another person’s answer during a major exam. So to answer the question, “Is cheating on a college campus a big problem?”, I can answer with certainty that cheating is not only a big problem, but also a prevalent activity that seems to occur in every university in the nation.
ReplyDeleteAlthough many might argue against my assertion, cheating to me is either black or white, and this comes from my experience as a Writing mentor-in-training. Throughout our training sessions, much of our focus is put on the distinction between mentoring and leading, which is a fancy term for “giving the answers.” From current writing mentors, I learned that I should not give any new ideas; instead, I was told to focus on encouraging the development of an ongoing idea, one that was originally presented by the person getting help. This approach parallels Weldy’s argument that a tutor must “never touch a pen or pencil to a student’s paper” (3), but it also defines the clear boundary between getting help and plagiarizing. At a freshman level writing course, more specifically Writing 1, I believe that most, if not all, plagiarisms are intentional. Of course, we have to consider the context in which the act was carried out, but usually I find that it is an urgent response to a time constraint. Without careful planning, workload can amass, and to a stressed student, plagiarism might seem like a shortcut.
Unfortunately, cheating and plagiarism are inevitable, as proven by McCabe, Treviño, and Butterfield. The implementation of honor codes does decrease the rate of cheating, but I think that communication is ultimately the key to eliminating cheating. When in doubt, a student should talk to a professor in a timely manner and seek guidance. In the end, it is in the student’s hand to take advantage of the available resources, or resort to an easy copy-paste the night before the deadline.