The Ethics of Buying College Work
With the advent of the internet, more written material is being published than ever before, including essays written to fulfill college assignments. Is it any wonder that many students, ill-prepared by a culture of quick-fix solutions, choose to buy essays available online and submit them dishonestly as their own work? No. It's predictable.
Some say that only a jaded person would draw such conclusions. Perhaps. Nonetheless, the number of websites offering the quick sale of term papers to desperate students is exhaustive. The sites devoted to the dubious cause of relieving stressed out students who, for one reason or another, cannot write their own papers are glitzy, attractive, enticing. Jaded or not, my contention that more and more college students will plagiarize to get a college degree is based on my own quick investigation. If demand drives the market, an increasing number of students must be pouring dollars into the plagiarism business. Why?
The answer is simple. More students than ever before in history are attending college, and the standards that once applied, such as during my grandfather's era, no longer do. College students no longer have to master basic writing skills in order to be accepted by the best universities, let alone open door schools that cater to the needs of modestly literate high school graduates. In short, many college students are incapable of writing well enough to make convincing arguments, let alone well-researched, documented term papers. Freshman college students do not represent an academically elite body of students any longer. Freshman college students today are made up in large part of yesterday's unskilled laborers. I venture to guess that most of my fellow college students would have been sent out by their parents to lives of hard labor had they lived seventy-five years ago. Today, they are sent to college as a prerequisite to working in just about any field, even those that don't genuinely rely upon the skills one might gain in a traditional liberal arts and sciences education.
Furthermore, students don't believe that they will ever "need" communication skills. The first question that one student asked in a college-level writing class that I took at a community college while I was still in high school was "Why do I need this course?" The teacher was taken aback, obviously feeling that the answer was self-evident.
Students, who come from different cultures and backgrounds, are not prepared (especially on their own) to give up everything that they have spent the past eight-teen years believing in, in order to write the perfect college essay.
In Downs and Wardle’s article, they argue and identify the flaws in teaching writing in college. Demonstrating the misconceptions that academic writing is universal, but rather specialized in each case. Citing studies and opinions from esteemed professionals, Downs & Wardle state their points and illuminate the problem in today’s many colleges.
In Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
In conclusion, students who plagiarize think that professors are dumb and idiotic because they do not notice when they really do. Teachers are not stupid due to the fact of the internet and resources. Searching plagiarized papers are very well easy to be done for professors in this day of age.
New York Times journalist, Trip Gabriel, puts into perspective students ability to use their creativity throughout their academic career in “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age.” This article discusses issues of plagiarism in the digital age, especially through college students. There are different perspectives from various people either attending college or professors that argue why plagiarism occurs. Whether it’s because of laziness, unpreparedness going into college, originality, or authorship not taken into consideration. Overall, this article infers the different standpoints of plagiarism, demonstrating the ease the digital age gives students to plagiarize, and the importance
The article Cybercheats clearly shows the cause/use of plagiarism. Students of all ethnic backgrounds use plagiarism. However it also shows how most schools are trying to crack down. Two employees from National Institutes of Health actually have a program that can decode essays that may have some sort of plagiarism. It is clearly obvious that the students who do indeed use this from of cheating have no real values. As Michael Miller, a teacher at Georgetown University, says, "It's really up to the individual reader to do with the information what they will, good or evil. I belong to a school that says teach people to do the right thing and then turn'em loose." It seems that if you are adult enough to actually attend collage then you are adult enough to handle the pressures and responsibilities that come along with it. For most cases the use of plagiarism is clearly used by students who don't know the value/capabilities of there own. They also aren't usually aware of the consequences.
College students face a variety of pressures and have a variety of motives that lead to intentional Plagiarism and unknowing or unintentional acts of Plagiarism. Most students plagiarize because they are overwhelmed. Writing assignments require a lot of time and a long thought process which may be a reason students feel overwhelmed at times.
In the first place, writing at any level is a challenge. It is a process that requires active thinking as well as creativity. Equally important, is the drive to understand what is necessary to inform the reader when using someone else’s work. In his findings, Gabriel begins with examples of students that committed plagiarism in colleges both unknowingly and intentionally. After exploring the opinions of writing tutors and officials in these situations, he suggests that many students fail to realize that plagiarism is a crime (Gabriel). He relies on the expert opinions of educators who deal with these situations on a daily basis. One such opinion mentioned, is that of Teresa Fishman, the director for the Center of Academic Integrity at Clemson University (Gabriel). She stated, “It’s possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take” (qtd. in Plagiarism Lines). This is said in reference to how easy technology has made “copying” and “pasting” of information according to Gabriel. He visits both sides of the fence, so to speak, concerning the views...
To begin with college used to be known as a sacred place where knowledge was sought out and pursued. Now it has become the norm. Therefore one may think, what’s wrong college becoming the norm? Isn’t that a good thing? However, what most people are blind being that the quality of education has changed dramatically. Author Caroline bird mentions in her narrative
The Akamai Corporation has meant big money for one Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and one of his students. Back in 1995, Tom Leighton, a professor of applied mathematics at MIT, started playing around with ways to use complex algorithms to ease congestion on the Web. He enlisted several researchers, including one of his graduate students, Danny Lewin. At the time, they weren't thinking about starting a company. But Mr. Lewin, following the keen instincts of a cash-strapped graduate student, suggested they enter the project in the Sloan School's annual business-plan competition. They won the software category in the preliminary round and then entered the finals, where they finished among the top six.
Plagiarism, or the unaccredited use of another's work or ideas, has become more and more of a problem in recent times than it was in the past. According to statistics found in a survey conducted by the Free Press, 58% of high school students let someone copy their work in 1969, but by 1989 this number had risen to 97%. The expansion of the World Wide Web and the number of people accessing the Web on a regular basis has caused an epidemic of plagiarism in this country, especially among students. This is a serious problem that must be addressed because many students feel that if they are not getting in trouble for cheating, than it is okay.
"Fools make researches and wise men exploit them." Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines the word plagiarize as to pass off as one's own the ideas or words of another. Every student knows that plagiarism is dishonest and wrong. Why do so many students do it? Students themselves may not believe that they are plagiarizing. Many students plagiarize because of the diverse types of plagiarism which are often unknown to students. The three major types of plagiarism are shameless, haphazard and self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is a relatively new concept that has not gained much attention in the student world.
Academic dishonesty, specifically cheating and plagiarism, recently has increased in popularity. Students often justify unethical academic behavior. Technological innovations, like the cellular telephone, have provided students with new methods of cheating. Plagiarism has also been influenced through technologies, specifically internet companies have emerged that provide unethical solutions to academic assignments.
There are many reasons why students choose to plagiarize. These students in general are students that seem to procrastinate or do the easiest thing possible which is to just copy something from someone who has already done their research on the subject.
Plagiarism is a serious offense and a growing trend in our society today. Some may associate plagiarism with the idea of taking someone else’s writing and making it their own. In fact plagiarism involves anything that is copied or taken and said to be of your own work. Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work, as by not crediting the author”. In fact this definition covers all types of cheating and misrepresentation of ones own work. There are many numbers and statistics that can be found on the amount of individuals that have admitted to cheating. Perhaps the most astounding number is one that was reported by Moeck in 2002 aloft of 40% of higher education students commit academic dishonesty. This number I’m sure has grown since this report and will continue to grow with the development of the Internet. There are a number of ideas and strategies that can be employed in order to stop this ever-growing phenomenon. As teachers and adults, we are responsible for stopping this trend and educating students about the consequences and dangers of plagiarism. I believe there are a variety of reasons individuals plagiarize. First, students are insecure with their own ability; they don’t believe they can do the work therefore they take others. Second, students believe they can get away with the act because they know others who have plagiarized, and there were not any consequences. Lastly, students are uneducated on what plagiarism is and do not know the consequences of their actions if they commit an act. These ideas will be the focus of the position taken on plagiarism in today’s academic society.