Midterm Cybercheats Essay, Research Paper

Midterm

Cybercheats

It seems like everyone is always looking for an easy way out of everything. Its hard to handle school when you have other difficulties in your life. With work, family, and friends it seems like nothing can ever be completed on time. It’s no wonder that in a recent reading from John Hickman in Cybercheats students are turning more and more to online plagiarism then they were years ago.

When times get rough and tough it seems like most students do turn to the internet for a little extra “help”. In Cybercheats it clearly shows how students use certain websites to get free or even pay for important papers and essays. As technology gets more advanced it appears that some people actually get lazier. Plagiarism plays a very important and major part in this article. It is clear that if caught plagiarizing you can be suspended, expelled, and/or receive an F on your assignment. For most students though it is worth the risk. Plagiarism is an act of cheating. Plagiarism is cheating.

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.

A major fallacy in this reading is Slippery Slope. As a Princeton freshman states, “it’s just so easy, and the class was a waste of time, anyway.” Well maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Some students might think the class is difficult. It might even be an important class to them. The use of Slippery Slope shows a person making a judgement without support.

The only possible solution to this problem that I can see is the solutions that we are using today. At El Camino I would never think of plagiarizing off of the Internet because of the software program that are available today. El Camino actually has a company that they pay to check essays that they think may be plagiarized. This is a valuable solution because e if you are aware of the consequences of being caught then you won’t have the initiative. Using good judgement and putting school, as a priority is a major way to beat the cheat.

Hickman, John N. New Republic, 03/23/98, Vol. 218 Issue 12, p14, 2p.