Cheating & Plagiarism

[Shogun Empress]

Are you cheating when you know someone is looking at your paper and don't say anything about it?

[kpih]

Are you cheating when you know someone is looking at your paper and don't say anything about it?

Well if you intentionally let the other person look at your paper during a test I would take issues with you. Conspiracy to Cheating probably is the proper charge.

However, if it is unintentional and you simply fell victim to the plagiarist, then unless you launch a complain or the instructor witness the act there is little can be done. It is part of the liability culture, and universities do not want to risk a law suit for upholding academic honesty and integrity.

[ism]

In theory, not reporting cheating violates the system of academic integrity.

In practice, you'd be opening yourself up to a lawsuit.

[nameless]

it's only cheating if you're caught.

[bluemonq]

^ agree. just like it's only murder when you're caught. otherwise, it's just a selective reduction in population.

[Mr.Lum]

If someone's looking at my paper as Im writing on a test, I raise my hand and ask if I can move or if they can be removed. If you know they're copying from you and you do nothing, you are complicit with their decietful act and are full of shit as they are.

[missmeow]

heh, that reminds me of the Dat Phan routine where he is talking about how bad in math he is and the six students around always failed too :)

[MacJulius]

Not cheating.

And on another note, I am not against cheating. I think standardized tests are overrated and should be deemed absolete.

But of course...we MUST have our bell curve.

[s1eve]

it's only cheating if you're caught.

that's like saying its not a lie of you believe in it.

[nameless]

that's like saying its not a lie of you believe in it.

well...yeah. like the saying goes - there is no reality; there is only perception.

don't get me wrong - i'm a moral guy. i wouldn't lie or cheat if it could really hurt someone (like in a relationship). i just never saw the problem with cheating in academics. some people are blessed with good study skills, others with picture perfect memories...i was blessed with the ability to cheat. go ahead and call it unfair to those who don't cheat. you're absolutely right. but, hey, who said life was fair?

as for the original post...i don't consider that cheating. that's aiding a cheater. and if you are doing that unwillingly, then you're a chump. report that shit, to cover your ass and teach that person to either stop cheating or become a better cheater.

[bluemonq]

well...yeah. like the saying goes - there is no reality; there is only perception.

don't get me wrong - i'm a moral guy. i wouldn't lie or cheat if it could really hurt someone (like in a relationship). i just never saw the problem with cheating in academics. some people are blessed with good study skills, others with picture perfect memories...i was blessed with the ability to cheat. go ahead and call it unfair to those who don't cheat. you're absolutely right. but, hey, who said life was fair?
not a personal attack; rather, what one of my high school teachers said about cheating:
what college are you going to? are you sure there isn't some other kid who deserved that spot more than you did, but it was close enough that it came down to your grades, and yours was higher because you cheated? when you graduate from college and get a job, are you sure that you won't get a job that someone else deserved more but didn't get because you got into the college that you did, and/or you got a higher gpa than him/her?
something to think about. not that there's anything you can do about it at this point. and about the perception thing, just because you or i are blind to reality correctly doesn't mean that it doesn't exist; all it means is that we have poor vision.

[nameless]

your teacher is very noble, but such thinking is foolish if you want to get ahead in life. the fact is, the playing field is all ready uneven; 'deserving' people get screwed over even when cheating isn't a factor. i went to one of the toughest high schools in california. if i hadn't cheated, i would have been one of those deserving people who got screwed over. i know this because my smart, hardworking friends who didn't cheat ended up at mid-tier colleges, because the good colleges accepted kids with better grades from ghetto schools.

the latter will pat themselves on the back, but my friends...they're pissed and think they 'deserved' better. hell, i think i do too at times. but that is pitiful thinking. you get what you get in life. to say you 'deserve' something is just whining that you didn't get what you think you should have. it means that you weren't willing to take an oppurtunity when you had the chance, be it study, cheat, network, etc.

and for a 'true' reality to exist, it would have to be a reality which is the same for everyone. but that is not the case, since everyone perceives reality in a different, constatly changing manner.

[bluemonq]

interesting, but you just contradicted your first statement, that it's only cheating when you're caught; you've admitted to cheating, and i'm assuming you weren't caught, or otherwsie you'd been screwed over, especially at "one of the toughest high schools in california" (wouldn't happen to be polytechnic in pasadena, would it?).

and about your friends...well, as you said yourself, too bad. there were some other students out there who got higher grades... deal. if you mean ghetto as in poor and underfunded, then the colleges saw that those people had more potential; sorry about your friends who attended a more competitive school and got lower grades, but dem's da breaks. and if you mean they have wack grading systems, well, colleges actually monitor the performance from differnt schools and take it into account in the future; our college counselor was on an admissions board at an ivy league, and that's what she told us; it's just too bad that they didn't catch it when your friends applied. you're right, no one "deserves" anything. when you start feeling like that, that's when you begin cheating: screw those other hard-working people, that spot should go to *me* and i'm going to do anything to get it.

you know what really pisses me off about this, ends-justifies-means, "take advantage of what you can" mentality? it's people like this who cause the worldcoms, enrosn, and arthur andersons. all those thousands of employees who *didn't* do anything wrong get screwed over, and those ceos and cfos who got caught at least had the chance to enjoy the time before they were jailed. you're going to say, "wait, wait, that's an entirely differnt scale." no, it isn't. you can justify it all you want. but stealing is stealing, lying is lying, and cheating is cheating. you can't change that.

and you considered yourself a noble guy, because you haven't cheated when you could end up hurting others. but you did, you say so yourself. not that there's anything you can do about it, so don't bother being repentant (not that i imagine you are); go tutor some underprivileged kids. if you're doing this already, good job. whatever, this is existential freedom: you can do/say/believe anything you want; you just have to realize there will always be consequences.

and again, just because no one has the same perspective doesn't mean a "true" reality doesn't exist. it might just mean that we all have different filters to perceive the raw data. it might make the idea of a true reality moot, but that doesn't mean it's non-existent.

[nameless]

interesting, but you just contradicted your first statement, that it's only cheating when you're caught; you've admitted to cheating, and i'm assuming you weren't caught, or otherwsie you'd been screwed over, especially at "one of the toughest high schools in california" (wouldn't happen to be polytechnic in pasadena, would it?).

Um, that's just how the saying goes. It's easier than typing "It's only cheating when they catch you; until then, it's just whatever you want to call it." And, no, I didn't go to Polytech, nor was I ever caught.

and about your friends...well, as you said yourself, too bad. there were some other students out there who got higher grades... deal. if you mean ghetto as in poor and underfunded, then the colleges saw that those people had more potential; sorry about your friends who attended a more competitive school and got lower grades, but dem's da breaks. and if you mean they have wack grading systems, well, colleges actually monitor the performance from differnt schools and take it into account in the future; our college counselor was on an admissions board at an ivy league, and that's what she told us; it's just too bad that they didn't catch it when your friends applied.

Colleges monitor, but not to the point where everyone is weighted as they should. Go to college and then tell me if you think everyone should be there based on their intelligence.

Anyway, if you can accept a less deserving (academic wise) person getting a lucky break, why can't you accept a cheater? I could just as easily say 'dems the breaks' that some cheater didn't get caught and got ahead.

you're right, no one "deserves" anything. when you start feeling like that, that's when you begin cheating: screw those other hard-working people, that spot should go to *me* and i'm going to do anything to get it.

Not really. I've been taking shortcuts since elementary school, and I never did it because I felt I 'deserved' something. I did it because it was easier than studying and stressing over a grade. Only until senior year, when I saw how many of my peers were getting jacked, did I realize how much I had helped my college chances and came up with this reasoning.

you know what really pisses me off about this, ends-justifies-means, "take advantage of what you can" mentality? it's people like this who cause the worldcoms, enrosn, and arthur andersons. all those thousands of employees who *didn't* do anything wrong get screwed over, and those ceos and cfos who got caught at least had the chance to enjoy the time before they were jailed. you're going to say, "wait, wait, that's an entirely differnt scale." no, it isn't. you can justify it all you want. but stealing is stealing, lying is lying, and cheating is cheating. you can't change that.

and you considered yourself a noble guy, because you haven't cheated when you could end up hurting others. but you did, you say so yourself. not that there's anything you can do about it, so don't bother being repentant (not that i imagine you are); go tutor some underprivileged kids. if you're doing this already, good job. whatever, this is existential freedom: you can do/say/believe anything you want; you just have to realize there will always be consequences.

I'm not really an 'ends justifies the means' kind of guy, although I know it appears that way. And I do consider myself a moral person (I never said I was noble), as in I stick to a pretty strict moral code. It's just that I don't see a bullshit system like academia as something to apply morals to. If there was a unjust law, would you follow it? If the government was taxing you to fund some bullshit cause, would you not cheat on your taxes?

If you think I'm just trying to justify, then fine. Be a better man than me. Don't ask a friend to share homework, don't ask for any insight into a professor's test. That'd be giving yourself an edge that some other poor student wouldn't have. Or are you going to tell me that's not some form of cheating because the rules don't strictly forbid it?


and again, just because no one has the same perspective doesn't mean a "true" reality doesn't exist. it might just mean that we all have different filters to perceive the raw data. it might make the idea of a true reality moot, but that doesn't mean it's non-existent.

LOL I should have never brought this up. It's a Buddhist saying, so you have to interpret it dualistically. Just forget that I even mentioned it...

[bluemonq]

[quote]
Colleges monitor, but not to the point where everyone is weighted as they should. Go to college and then tell me if you think everyone should be there based on their intelligence.
are they? no. should they be? yes. i think it's a problem that we don't have vocational schools, or different tracks. a one-size-fits-all education just doesn't work. some people aren't even interested in what they're doing, but simply going about it because it's the way they're *supposed* to be doing it.


Anyway, if you can accept a less deserving (academic wise) person getting a lucky break, why can't you accept a cheater? I could just as easily say 'dems the breaks' that some cheater didn't get caught and got ahead.
because they happened to be lucky. a cheater takes someone else's work and passes it off as is own (plaigarism, but we're talking about academics so there's overlap). intellectual theft is what i call it.


Not really. I've been taking shortcuts since elementary school, and I never did it because I felt I 'deserved' something. I did it because it was easier than studying and stressing over a grade. Only until senior year, when I saw how many of my peers were getting jacked, did I realize how much I had helped my college chances and came up with this reasoning.
admittedly, this is a flaw of the education system. see first.


I'm not really an 'ends justifies the means' kind of guy, although I know it appears that way. And I do consider myself a moral person (I never said I was noble), as in I stick to a pretty strict moral code. It's just that I don't see a bullshit system like academia as something to apply morals to. If there was a unjust law, would you follow it? If the government was taxing you to fund some bullshit cause, would you not cheat on your taxes?
sorry, for some reason i typed in noble, instead of moral. but anyway, i think the iraq war was a bullshit thing, will i still pay my taxes this year? yes, i will. because those are the rules. as for unjust laws, that's something different; that's what civil disobedience is for. in that case, you're not simply taking the fruits of someone else's labor...


If you think I'm just trying to justify, then fine. Be a better man than me. Don't ask a friend to share homework, don't ask for any insight into a professor's test. That'd be giving yourself an edge that some other poor student wouldn't have. Or are you going to tell me that's not some form of cheating because the rules don't strictly forbid it?

in fact, i *do* do these two things... because my professors explicitly say it's ok. i just draw the line at simply copying the answers over, which is *not* ok.


LOL I should have never brought this up. It's a Buddhist saying, so you have to interpret it dualistically. Just forget that I even mentioned it...
the perils of pwd ([me] posting while drunk)...forget *i* said anything about it... i think i'm going to layoff of these forums for a while.

[ChaCha]

Are you cheating when you know someone is looking at your paper and don't say anything about it?

I just cover up my paper.

And no I never cheated in my entire academic life, went to Christian preschool - elementary school.

I cant even lie without my face turning red, stuttering or shaking.

I see cheaters though. Other day the TA said this quiz will not affect your grade, and it was so funny to see a guy pull out a cheat sheet during the quiz.

[nola]

Whatever, princess. Haha.

It's considered cheating if you're aware of cheating going on and you don't do anything about it. It makes one an accomplice. In the first grade, me and two guys got in trouble because they copied answers from my math assignment.

[evry_oda_grl]

I just cover up my paper.

totally agree...i mean dat's d onli fin u can du if u hav time limits cause if u say ppl cheated n dey'll ask if dey did n stuff like dat...i'd much rada use dat time 2 fin off my exam since i always hav 2 rush at d end of dem :tongue:

[BigLew]

Ah hell I thought this was about something else.

[Emperor_Mike]

Cheating is no good. It cheapens the experience of having an education by a long shot since you're not actually utilising what knowledge you gained from sitting through appallingly boring lectures. Boredom of that calibre requires in some sort of pay-off.

[Shogun Empress]

Ah hell I thought this was about something else.Yes that's cheating too. Just looking at another girl is cheating.

[kpih]

Once in a while I still get mad over it because it is an insult to my intelligence and my profession as the instructor. I really do not appreciate people thinking I am stupid and they can get away with it...

For instance one time two sisters were taking the same class. One day we had a quiz, apparently one sister is absent. I received two quizes from both sisters with the same handwriting, same pen and same answers...

Still, the way higher education is set up nowadays there is very little I can do even as the professor. Unless I capture the person on the spot and gather clear material evidance or witness, I cannot really deliver a suitable punishment. Administors (Presidents, Chancellors, Provosts, Deans and Chairs) often freak out over potential lawsuits and other allegations. Upholding integrity is no longer the priority...

That's not to encourage any potential offenders. The guilty will be punished!

[Shogun Empress]

That's not to encourage any potential offenders. The guilty will be punished!On a year average, how many times have you caught your students cheating? Have you ever caught people who have written the answers on their arm like they used to do on those old Black-In-White television shows like Leave it to Beaver for instance?


'On most campuses, over 75% of students admit to some cheating. In a 1999 survey of 2,100 students on 21 campuses across the country, about one-third of the participating students admitted to serious test cheating and half admitted to one or more instances of serious cheating on written assignments.'

http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research.asp

Wow. Thats a lot of cheating going on. Too bad like Pokemon you can't catch em all.

[bluemonq]

writing on the arm is passe. people write it on their palms these days, so if you're on the verge of being caught...
:: lick ::
there goes the evidence. you can also try writing it on the sides of shoes and on the calculator cover in pencil; in both of these cases it's hard to detect and also apparently still easy to get rid of the evidence. just some things i've seen over the years.
Yes that's cheating too. Just looking at another girl is cheating.
we're going to need a whole lot of shiskabob skewers then...

[ahsingjai]

Cheating is rampant. Every head turn of the teacher is possible that a few students just glance at each other in that half a second.

[yuuteya]

Is it ok? Have you done it before? Have you ever thought of doing it?

[AznTrojan]

everyone's done it..

doesn't make it ok..

[LaiSteve66]

We've had a few people cheat their way through college. We had this one person cheat and freeload his way through the MIS department here. One time in a SQL class, my friend and I got paired up with this one fellow and we got on our first assignment where we had twenty queries to write.

So me and the other guy (not my friend) go to the lab and try to do them. I already know this stuff because I took the CS version of this course so I'm essentially teaching him this stuff. I explain the first three queries and he acts like he's getting it, so I put him in the driver's seat and let him try the fourth query. This was a multi-table query and he sits there at the computer clueless so I try to explain some basic concepts and he still doesn't get it. I back up and go to single-table queries and try to explain the concept of the primary key. So instead of just flat out telling him, I try to walk-him through it with a simple real-world example and ask him how to uniquely identify a car. He answers with "the color". I was somewhat shocked and then I asked him if we had two cars the same make, year, model and color how they would be uniquely identified. He just looks at me and says "the color". I tell him "NO" and ask him again trying to explain why it isn't the color and then he gives me a blank stare. Finally I tell him "the license plate". I explain some more concepts using the given ER diagrams and other aids to explain and he takes his first shot at the query.

He then starts hunt and pecking at the keyboard with his two index fingers and I'm like "WTF?” He doesn't get it right, and finally we get booted from the lab at school because it's closing time.

Later I get a letter from the business school saying I'm dropped from the course because I'm not a "declared major/minor" so it's just my friend and the other guy.

I kind of felt sorry for my friend because his other team member is slow but he assures me he'll be okay. So they split the queries between them with my friend talking 11-20 and the other guy taking the rest with me already done with the first three.

On the due date, the other guy goes to the lab and asks another team for a printout of their first ten queries and gives it to my friend in class who turns it in.

The next day, the instructor pulls out my friend and the team leader from the other team and confronts them saying the first ten queries are exactly the same. Luckily he lets it slide but my friend is furious and confronts his teammate in another course where he gets all apologetic.

Meanwhile we're (me, my friend and the other guy) taking this other course (Systems Analysis and Design) and the three of us are on a team with two other people so there are five of us. Four friends (us) and the "other guy" where we have a group project. After we formed our team, someone in the course told us that the "other guy" is a deadbeat and didn't do anything in a group project in another course.

That turned out to be the case in our project. He just sat at our meetings silent and offered nothing which frustrated us. We gave him something do to just to give him something to do but deliverables were unacceptable and I had to pick up the slack.

Back in SQL class, assignment two was due (Fifty queries) and the "other guy" sent his queries to my friend via email. Upon opening them he noticed a disclaimer at the bottom stating "You may use these queries only as reference" and realized the email had been forwarded. He then did all fifty queries himself and didn't report it because he didn't want to give the initial sender of the email in trouble.

At the end of the SAD course, the four of us completed our project without any help from the other guy, and we sent an email to the professor explaining that this other guy didn't do anything and he replied saying he would take it into consideration when issuing the final grades. Then the next day, we take the final and after the final my friend says the “other guy” tried to cheat on the final and my friend tried to get my attention because the other guy” was sitting right behind me but I didn't notice.

Later after the grades are reported, the project manager in our team gets the “other guys” DOB and accesses the other guy’s webct account to see his grades. He had failed all his tests but got the same grade as the rest of us on the project which he didn't contribute to which pulled him up to passing.

We were furious but we couldn't say anything.

He went on to cheat and freeload in other classes and never got caught and he graduated and we don't know what happened after that.

Bottom line is cheating sucks. Most people I know have cheated once or twice, but there are a few people who cheat and freeload their way through college and get degrees they don't deserve and then they get jobs and the employer quickly figures out that they're incompetent and it makes the University look bad. Yes it does catch up to them eventually but it still pisses me off.

[Leinad]

everyone's done it..

doesn't make it ok..

um I WAS ACCUSED OF PLAGIARISM, when I didn't. But that was just for that incident.

na jks i do sometimes. Is 'reword'-ing plagiarism? Cuz that's what I do.

[AznTrojan]

re-wording is plagiarism

um I WAS ACCUSED OF PLAGIARISM, when I didn't. But that was just for that incident.

na jks i do sometimes. Is 'reword'-ing plagiarism? Cuz that's what I do.

[bluemonq]

someone may want to consider merging this thread with another one:
http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=21370

back in high school, a few of us were bored once and worked out all the ways one could sneak in answers to a test. some of them were variants of classic ones (writing on the *sides* of your fingers and fingernails so it's easy to destroy; on the inside of your wrist), some sort of new (writing something with a pencil on the inside of your calculator cover and in between the buttons; on erasers, on gum, mints, and their wrappers which would be rewrapped); and some were just weird (if you're a girl and had a habit of wearing short skirts AND you had a male teacher, write it on your thighs). my uncle and his friends used to carve answers on their *pencils*; they'd manufacture incidents to trade pencils if need be.

[didu]

na jks i do sometimes. Is 'reword'-ing plagiarism? Cuz that's what I do.

"Rewording" is 100% plagiarism, no question about it. If you are going
to use someone else's research, you HAVE to reference it.

[Leinad]

"Rewording" is 100% plagiarism, no question about it. If you are going
to use someone else's research, you HAVE to reference it.

I do dat didu. Besides i'm happy that there was only one posible chance for me to plagiarise at school; only 1 english assignment

lol i thought plagiarism was like copying. But plagiarism is unavoidable i reckon; somethings will definately match up with the source...

e.g. 'Plants are made up of cells.'

How can you say that without not rewording? thinking about it, it's mind-blogging:confused:

Wait... so is plagiarism 'cheating'?

[didu]

lol i thought plagiarism was like copying. But plagiarism is unavoidable i reckon; somethings will definately match up with the source...

e.g. 'Plants are made up of cells.'

How can you say that without not rewording? thinking about it, it's mind-blogging:confused:

It really depends on the circumstance. You don't have to reference
everything that you write, as long as what you are not referenceing
is "common sense". For example, if your teacher asked you to write
an essay about plants, and you just copied someone else's work and
claimed it as yours -- that'd be plagiarism.



Wait... so is plagiarism 'cheating'?

It's a form of cheating.

[Leinad]

didu that ^^^ thanks:wink:

someone may want to consider merging this thread with another one:
http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=21370

back in high school, a few of us were bored once and worked out all the ways one could sneak in answers to a test. some of them were variants of classic ones (writing on the *sides* of your fingers and fingernails so it's easy to destroy; on the inside of your wrist), some sort of new (writing something with a pencil on the inside of your calculator cover and in between the buttons; on erasers, on gum, mints, and their wrappers which would be rewrapped); and some were just weird (if you're a girl and had a habit of wearing short skirts AND you had a male teacher, write it on your thighs). my uncle and his friends used to carve answers on their *pencils*; they'd manufacture incidents to trade pencils if need be.

another way is to use a rubber-band, used as a bracelet. On the inside, you stretch it, write stuff, and during the test, you stretch the band and there's ur answers. It it's unstretched, it just looks like random lines.

i got that from this 20/20 special thing. cool what tv can teach you

[LaiSteve66]

^^Don't you think the time spent coming up with these elaborate schemes to cheat could be better spent actually learning the material?

[yuuteya]

^^Don't you think the time spent coming up with these elaborate schemes to cheat could be better spent actually learning the material?yes. you hit the nail on the head. that, and some combination of laziness, procrastination, and lack of study discipline.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Yeah, how much information can you really fit on a rubber band? Or the space between the keys of your calculator? Unless it's a multiple-choice test and you stole the answers beforehand ...

(if you're a girl and had a habit of wearing short skirts AND you had a male teacher, write it on your thighs)
But if the guy's always staring at the girl's legs, and she's wearing a short skirt, then doesn't that just make her more likely to get caught???

[Leinad]

^^Don't you think the time spent coming up with these elaborate schemes to cheat could be better spent actually learning the material?

man this has gone serious... yes ur right... i was just recalling what i saw.. jeez

Yeah, how much information can you really fit on a rubber band? Or the space between the keys of your calculator? Unless it's a multiple-choice test and you stole the answers beforehand ...


But if the guy's always staring at the girl's legs, and she's wearing a short skirt, then doesn't that just make her more likely to get caught???

yes. i try not looking, but no matter what how hard i try, the eyes just go there... just like that. it's like an involuntary muscle movement.

what if it was a guy doing that... o no gotta stop thinking about it.

[kpih]

Don't forget, cheating and plagiarism is an insult to the professor, the discipline, your colleagues, and yourself as a person. I really think the last bit is the worst.

Then again, most scumbags are too stupid to have any integrity.

[yuuteya]

0Fk\0\0\0\00sDon't forget, cheating and plagiarism is an insult to the professor, the discipline, your colleagues, and yourself as a person. I really think the last bit is the worst.

Then again, most scumbags are too stupid to have any integrity.[/QUOTE]you forget that the line between professor and student is not always that clear.

how about when weak professors commit plagiarism against other professors and yes, it happens, against a brilliant student.

seniority is does not mean immunity from corruption. in fact entrenched seniority usually creates conditions that lead to corrupt behavior.

[Shogun Empress]

I've found that if I bend over real low, my hair will cover the paper and he won't be able to see :redface:

[AznTrojan]

I've found that if I bend over real low, my hair will cover the paper and he won't be able to see :redface:

that's awesome.. :tongue:

[stupidredhead13]

But if the guy's always staring at the girl's legs, and she's wearing a short skirt, then doesn't that just make her more likely to get caught???

i think the point was that it's more acceptable for a female teacher to speak up if she sees it than for a male one, in addition to looking in the first place. what's he supposed to say afterwards? "yes, i noticed the notes on her thigh while i was ... uh... umm..."