Academic Integrity
You will not stay long in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) or in any academic institution without discovering the opportunity to cheat. The temptation is strong in any setting where stress is high, where the payoff for relatively high performance are significant, and where the opportunity readily presents itself. To confront such temptations you need to know what cheating is, what are its consequences, and how to think about the alleged "justifications" for it. The purpose of this essay is to help you think about whether you really want to cheat, and to help you identify ambiguous situations in which a little care can help you avoid (or respond to) unpleasant accusations.
What is Cheating?
Basically, cheating is lying about what is one's own work or about its relative value. Lying is a serious matter. Emerson, perhaps America's most serious thinker, says "Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar but is a stab at the health of human society." For a fuller analysis, see Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.
Academic lying (cheating) occurs when one copies the work of another and submits it as one's own; or when one uses unfair means to appear more accomplished than one really is. The forms taken by academic misrepresentation are many, some common and obvious, others less so. The more generally recognized forms include those listed in the UNL's Student Code of Conduct (Section 4.2). Clearly, this itemized list is not complete. There are an infinite variety of activities like these and no list will exhaust them all. Any activity by which one unfairly presents an image of one's performance or capabilities which is absolutely or relatively inflated constitutes a breach of academic integrity. There is no need to list all such activities: they are all prohibited.
Ambiguous Situations
There are, however, some less obvious activities which authorities may regard as academic dishonesty even though the person doing them does not intend anything dishonest. One can find oneself unexpectedly in trouble when presenting the results of perfectly legitimate collaborative effort; the citation of source materials offers a second chance for trouble; a third potentially troublesome situation arises when one submits the same work in more than one course. Awareness of potential problems may keep you from difficulty.
Collaboration: We all recognize that the University is a place where students learn from one another. Your professors are no less students than are your classmates. Clearly, we all learn from one another and we all learn collaboratively together. What may be less clear in any given case is the extent to which collaborative learning must be noted. As a general rule, all work which is the result of collaborative writing should be noted as such--whether that collaboration occurs among students OR between a student and a tutor.
In cases of assigned group work, generally the whole group will be credited with the entire project so there is no need to note the collaboration beyond the names on the completed assignment. It is legitimate to identify appropriate specific individuals as primarily responsible for particular parts of the joint work.
As a general rule, joint studying need not be noted so long as each person is responsible for the actual presentations for which she or he is to be credited.
Citing Sources: When or how often one is responsible to cite the written sources of what one knows or says is not always clear. Customs on this matter differ by context. You can expect that the rules in the University may well be more strict than those to which you were accustomed in primary or secondary school. Some rules of thumb may help you avoid difficulty:
1. If you use more than three or four words from another's work in the same order as the author does, put them in quotation marks and cite the source immediately .
2. If you are using ideas from another source and not using the other's exact words, you still need to cite the source and to do so as close to the material used as possible--generally at the end of the sentence where the used material occurs. If you are making extensive use of another's material, it is minimally necessary to cite your source at the end of each paragraph--perhaps more frequently if your paragraphs are remarkably long (only one or two to a typed page).
3. If you are using material that is commonly known you do not need to cite the source even if it happens to appear in one. For example, one need not cite a source for the observation that "water freezes" even if this fact can be found in a printed text. If one can find a matter in several (say three or more) sources, one can assume that it is commonly known. However, if the question ever comes up, the burden of demonstrating that something is commonly known lies upon the person who did not cite the source. If in doubt, cite.
4. Just as customs change between the high school and university, so too do customs change between disciplines at the University. The Associated Press (AP) Style Sheet may be acceptable, even mandatory, in Journalism but Psychology and other disciplines may require adherence to the APA (American Psychological Association) Style Manual. You move from area to area more frequently than your instructors do, so they often do not feel the need you do to be explicit about their rules. If you have any doubt at all about the expectations of those for whom you are writing, you can save everyone untold grief if you will only ask what the customs of citation are in that context.
You have a right to know and your instructor is obliged, on request, either to tell you or to direct you to the appropriate sources.
One other point to remember about citing: you are responsible for the material you cite. An authority may provide impressive, even elegant, support for your point--but in citing her you assert your concurrence with her position. Ptolemy thought that the sun circled the Earth and Aristotle believed in the spontaneous generation of maggot life in corpses. If you cite them to base a case on one of these matters you accept responsibility for the validity of their positions as if it were your own. "So and so said it first," is no excuse for bad information. Good information can be found in assigned material, in current material from responsible publishers and refered journals. Your instructor or a reference librarian can help you find appropriate sources of information and to assess its relative reliability. (Beware of the World Wide Web: unlike scholarly publications of reputable publishing houses or scholarly associations, the WWW makes no effort at quality control. You may find brilliance beside baloney. Confirm your WWW findings from other sources or check with your instructor about the reputation of an author.)
Submitting the same work for two courses: Opinions differ as to whether it is legitimate to submit the same work (papers, journals, etc.) to complete the requirements in two different courses--even if the work is unquestionably your own. The issue here is whether you are fulfilling the instructor's expectation that you consider and treat anew even repeated material for each different class. Enough instructors regard it as cheating to submit the same work in separate courses that you ought not do it without prior permission of both instructors; if the materials in question were produced for a previous course, then clear your intent with the current instructor. If the double submission of material is legitimate there is no harm in clearing it first. But there is potentially real grief in acting on the assumption that it is legitimate if your instructor does not share the assumption.
The Consequences of Academic Dishonesty
At UNL before an instructor acts on suspected cheating, the student must be provided the opportunity to discuss the situation. Either the student or the instructor may then bring it to the attention of the instructor's department chair or head, the student's adviser, the college dean or the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs. For admitted or proven dishonesty the instructor may go so far as to fail the student for the assignment or for the entire course. If the penalty suffices to cause the student to fail the course the instructor must write to the department chair or head and to the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, informing them of the facts and of the penalty. The student must be given a copy of this report. The instructor may recommend further punishment, and the Vice Chancellor may submit the case to the University judicial system. For a full report of the possible consequences, see Student Code of Conduct (indexed in the "UNL Undergraduate Bulletin"). Be aware: the potential penalties are stiff indeed.
There is good reason for this severity. Cheating has serious effects on the cheater, the cheater's classmates, the instructor, and the whole institution.
Cheating saps the cheaters' self-respect and undermines their confidence in their own integrity. Alexander Pope notes that some vices are so ugly that to be hated they need "but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, and familiar grown, We first endure, then pity, then embrace" them. Cheating becomes addictive, a crutch one cannot do without. Further, cheaters deny themselves the opportunity to know whether they could do the work on their own. Where cheating is a tactic to reduce stress it will most likely be counter productive. It increases stress because getting caught has a potentially severe impact on the cheater's reputation. Fear of detection often creates even greater anxiety. Inventing elaborate schemes to evade discovery often makes discovery more likely. Keeping the stories straight compounds the original stress. As Walter Scott put it: "O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." Both psychologists and ethicists agree: in times of high stress, do not lie.
Cheating undermines the cheater's classmates' confidence in the integrity, effectiveness, and competence of the academic enterprise; it consequently undercuts their willingness to engage fully in the educational activities for which they came to the university.
Cheating increases cynicism on the part of the faculty, distracting them from serious class preparation and diminishing both their confidence in students and their willingness to commit to students their precious time and energy.
Finally, cheating betrays the fundamental purposes of the University and so it erodes the confidence in which the institution is held by the entire community on which it depends for support. To the extent that the community outside the university depends upon the certified competence of those whom it graduates, what the university has to offer is cheapened by cheating. To the extent that a University is a place in which students learn from one another, its capacity to fulfill its function is reduced by the loss of confidence in each other that inevitably results from cheating. Insofar as each act of cheating leads to an environment in which cheating becomes custom, each act attacks the fundamental goals of the institution. Each instance of cheating deflects from learning and diminishes the ability of members of the University community to be open and frank themselves and in their dealings with each other; it consequently subverts the search for improved knowledge and its dissemination.
The loss of integrity that comes from academic dishonesty is therefore not only personal but corporate. Each member of the university community is responsible to act against dishonesty since every member suffers its consequences. That is why the penalties for cheating are so stiff.
Confronting the Issue: Why Do People Cheat?
There are about six "justifications" alleged for academic dishonesty.
1. "Everyone does it: in all fairness I should do so too." This is no doubt an exaggeration. But the extent that one believes it is the extent to which one is obliged to do something about it; believing that everyone does it is not grounds to bring the belief closer to reality.
2. "The System is unfair anyway." There are other ways to handle unfairness (the Ombudsperson may help, so may grade appeal committees; in especially ugly cases one might even complain to The Academic Senate's Professional Conduct Committee). But note: the complaint of a known cheater lacks credibility.
3. "No one could do all this work anyway." This is probably not true; some folks do it. Such a fear should lead one to develop better time management and study skills rather than to adopt potentially self-destructive behaviors.
4. "This grade is absolutely essential, so I have to cheat." This tends to be a panic response to pressure. Such pressures can often be avoided in ways just suggested; and, besides they often are more apparent than real. Few grades are more essential than one's good name and few are so significant that their effect cannot ever be overcome. If the grade is essential, then the command of the knowledge it represents is probably essential as well--and the embarrassing effects of the misrepresentation are likely to be felt beyond the grade report. If the cheating is resorted to in the effort to allay anxiety and stress, it is generally counter-productive: the fear of unmasking can only exacerbate the stress one is seeking to diminish.
5. "The assignment was silly and so was my response." or "The instructor gives no evidence of taking this work seriously, so why should I?" This justification overlooks the problem that the "silly response" affects the responder (it interferes with learning and has the other consequences cited above) and probably the whole academic community in ways that are more seriously negative than the damage that derives from assignments that may really be silly or from professors who may indeed be jaded with material you asked them to teach you. Your learning is your responsibility: refusing to learn what you have hired someone to teach you because you do not like their manner seems wasteful.
6. Look, I'm not here for an education, but to buy a license or certification that will permit more lucrative employment. As long as I pay for it, what else matters? This justification can probably be shown to be a lie by the cheater's behavior in other classes. In any event this line is a startling cynicism, one which betrays a willingness to waste a great deal of the cheater's time, money and reputation for a paper which by itself is worth almost nothing. The behavior consequent to this line invites at least three major problems. A. It makes those who rely on it habitual liars, which undermines their self-esteem and self- confidence. B.That behavior must become known to one's peers to the serious long-term detriment of one's reputation. And C. A degree is a symbol that a person knows certain kinds of things and can complete a serious, prolonged and complicated program of effort. Employers and others will quickly discover it if you have none of the capacities expected in a person with a degree. It might be better for one simply to forge the diploma and get on with one's life than incur the losses involved in the four to six years it takes pretending to earn it. The personal costs of discovery are in the long run arguably less expensive.
In sum, all these alleged "justifications" for cheating are probably either misperceptions or they represent problems that had much better be addressed in a different fashion. For your own well-being and for that of the whole university, please find other ways to achieve the grade recognition you seek.
--Written and/or compiled by James A. McShane
