Best of Luck, and Don’t Cheat (Diamondback)

I submitted this to our school newspaper, probably too late to be published… but oh well:

As our most difficult week of the semester is before us, we all just want to go home. But we’ve worked hard for at least some of the semester and now have a chance to show it. Many of us have borderline grades and there’s a big difference between an A and a B at College Park. I don’t need to say any more about the pressure that’s on us this week.

Some of us really want to walk away with a solid understanding of our courses, which is one of the purposes of finals. But others just want those grades: for scholarships, for financial aid, for graduate school, for sports, or for whatever your reason might be. One can only hope that, regardless of our motivations, we do the work ourselves.

Currently 122 students are at risk of expulsion at the University of Virginia, and all of these students were in the same physics class. Of 2,200 students surveyed at 21 colleges, 10 percent said they had “borrowed” material from the Internet, and 5 percent admitted to using long passages or full compositions (Amy Argetsinger, Washington Post, May 9).

While our honor code is not as strict as UVA’s, which expels all students convicted of cheating, it still serves as a deterrent. But what is it exactly that defines cheating? There are times when it’s undeniable and other grayer situations. As we are all heading into finals we have a lot to consider in our preparation.

I know that any work I submit is my own. It’s not because of any honor code or threat of expulsion. Perhaps it’s a fear of being misperceived or my over-inflated conception of the quality of my work… but my mom has given me birthday cards that I won’t even sign: “I’ve met her once and you want me to wish her a happy birthday?”

But just because my work is my own doesn’t mean it’s all based on respectable primary sources. Some things I learn from people, others from books, and others from summaries about people and books. When is it appropriate to seek literary criticism? When is it fair to consult an authority? What’s acceptable to discuss in a study group? When is it moral to use Cliff Notes?

Some of my examinations are take-home, and others are in-class. When studying for the latter it’s fair ground to discuss anything with your classmates. You can talk about the study questions and the definitions until you and your friends reach a consensus. But with take-homes it’s a grayer issue. Some professors mandate that you not discuss the questions with anyone at all. But how is this different? If you’re going to write your own answers then why are you forbidden to consult other students or authorities? What’s the difference between discussing a paper and seeking help on a type of physics problem that you know will be on the test? Isn’t the essential goal just to understand the material?

That’s my goal. If that’s yours then you shouldn’t have to worry so much about cheating. There’s a feeling we all get when we cut corners or skip steps. That should be our warning. I don’t think that take-home and in-class exams should need to be approached so differently. Studying together for a test is a great chance to actually understand and apply the material that we’ve spent so many hours working on alone. Hopefully none of us are here to learn a subject and then toss it aside (at least once we’re through with CORE), so we should enjoy talking about the material… especially if it’s what we’ll be using in our future careers.

But to get to that eventual career goal we still need to use our discretion. If we’re nervous about our activities then we need to consider our intentions. Is your primary goal to understand the topics or to get a good grade? Are you using resources that you’d feel comfortable citing on a paper? These are questions we all have to ask ourselves as we approach our finals… not because we don’t want to get in trouble, but because we want to be respectable people. This is the real world and people work hard for the things they do; how would you feel if someone stole your final thesis after months of work? Substitute the word “months” for years and you still won’t know how it feels to be plagiarized.

Anyhow, I really should get back to my philosophy exams. Whatever your motivations, I wish you the best of luck on your finals. But don’t cut corners, you will regret it.