Academic Dishonesty

Story by Christopher Huslig »

Academic dishonesty comes in many shapes and forms. It can fall anywhere between you using your friend’s homework to finish your own and outright plagiarism.

People cheat for numerous different reasons.

Mr. Chris Durkin, EHS World History and Sociology teacher said “laziness and procrastination” are the main reason people cheat. This year and last year there have been some major problems in social study classes with cheating. Last year, the students used each others information to finish their interactive notebooks in World History, and this year in Mr. Tharp’s class some students took a picture of the final answer sheet and shared it to friends.

Mr. Durkin says his definition of cheating is “Taking someone else’s intellectual data and using it as your own.”

Cheating might seem like the easy thing to do, but the negative consequences of cheating usually outweigh any short-term gain..

When asked what he considers cheating and plagiarism, EHS Principal Ron Abel referred directly to a document that can be accessed by any student.

“Policy connected to cheating and plagiarism are both in the student handbook.”

According to the student handbook: “When a student is guilty of cheating, the teacher shall collect the student’s work, assign a failing grade, issue a major, and notify the parent(s) and the office immediately as to the action taken. The parent(s) shall be notified that a second offense will bring automatic suspension from school.”

So even though that cheating might seem like the easy way to avoid disaster, the consequences are catastrophic.

Plagiarism is another problem. According to the student handbook the definition of plagiarism is “The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.” Plagiarism isn’t just going online and cutting and pasting content, it can also be a student using their friend’s homework to finish their assignment. Some people don’t think of using your friend’s homework as plagiarism, but in fact it is because it is taking someone else’s work and claiming it is yours.

Alec Hopson, Frosh, said “The consequences [of cheating] just aren’t worth it.”