Plagiarism: The Negative Side of Cheating

This is the act of deceiving, behaving dishonestly for a specific purpose. Children may cheat in schools, while playing and also at home. It is the act of ignoring the rules in a competitive situation and gains the advantage. The person who has cheated is rewarded using inappropriate method. The person who does all the above-mentioned deeds is said to have cheated. Cheating in schools has been reported to extend all the way from the lower levels to the colleges. Students are becoming experts in the act and the parents do not know this (Gillette, 1).

Arcy Lyness in “kids health” article gives an experience of a certain teacher in class who brought a test to her students and a student by the name Jeff removes a small paper with some writings. As the students were doing the test, Jeff was always looking at the paper and the teacher as well to see whether she is looking at him. This is actually cheating in an exam. Kids in school may cheat in other different ways for example; stealing another student’s idea by copying his or her assignment or work, this is also called plagiarism.

If students join a school and note that there is a culture of cheating, they then adopt to that and continue doing so. However, according to Dirmeyer, Jennifer Cartwright, Alexander C, in the article . "Honor Codes Work Where Honesty Has Already Taken Root,"  if there is an honor code for students to follow, students will join school and chose not to cheat even if they were used to cheat in their previous schools. This is because there are risks of getting caught and being punished.

Why students cheat

Students can be able to learn and be able to get better results in the tests done. However according to research done by ABC news, it was noted that students cheat as a way of surviving in real world. The students cited scandals such as financial and presidential. They mentioned that those involved in the scandals were not severely punished, one could cheat, and if not proven guilty remains free. Other students believe that going to school is not about learning the facts and putting them in mind but it is to know the way to dodge the system in your favor.

Hope Gillette in an article “Cheating at school” noted that some students will cheat because they did not get enough time to study either because they are lazy or they are pre occupied with other activities such as watching television or swimming. Kids will tend to like other activities more than studies. They spend more time in these activities such as ball games video games and others. The kids do not want to fail in the tests even though they did not study hence they end up cheating. Others will cheat because they believe that they cannot pass the tests without using a material to remind them of certain points. These students forget that it is not good to cheat however good the reason for cheating is. Students are forced to cheat because their parents require seeing them have quality grades. The students know very well that if they do not get a good grade, they will not be in a position to proceed to the next level. The students who do not have the ability to score high marks therefore end up cheating because they want to impress their parents and also proceed to the next level (Malcolm, 1).

If a student got sick few days before the examination and could not be able to study, he or she should tell the teacher so that they can get a solution. The students who have problems of balancing their activities with studies should also talk to their parents and teachers so that they can be guided on how to do it.

According to Malcolm G survey  on cheating crisis in schools, it was noted that 7 out of 10 students have ever cheated in school. Out of five students, three of them said they had cheated in examination while four in every five have copied another student’s work. This is a big problem in school in that it is not only the low achieving students who cheat but also the smart students, both boys and girls, their leaders and also those that have strong faith.

Solutions

Parents should get rid of that culture of only the achievements in the grades. This pressure makes the students who do not have the ability to score cheat to achieve them. Students need to have a society that inculcates and values character and morals. If the students are made to feel better about themselves, in school and at home, they would marvelous. This would make them feel great when they do well in class and do it honestly. Students who realize they have the problem of cheating and report should be advised on how to deal with the vice. Malcolm Gauld also supports this in the article, “The cheating crisis in our school” .

Hope Gillette in an article “Cheating at school”  provides certain methods that teachers could use prevent students from cheating in class. They are summarized as follows. One, parents should work with teachers to give the message that cheating is not accepted in any level, students in class should be given chance to have class discussions to have come up with their own conclusions. Teachers should explain the risks that follow a cheating student before punishing him or her. Teachers should hide at the back of the classroom when giving a test to make the students who want to cheat feel nervous hence, easy to note. The teachers should avoid giving short answer tests to reduce the chances of students passing on the answers to friends. The teacher should always remind the students of the punishments that would follow after cheating like cancelling the exam and others. They should also be reminded of the morals and how good it is for one to score from own hard work. This makes the students fear to do it and always work hard to do their personal work.