Plagiarism: The Influence Of Cheating

The ancient Greek playwright Sophocles once said, “I would prefer to even fail with honor than win by cheating.” Implying that cheating is inappropriate, Sophocles brings forward an idea which most people would agree to; however, academic cheating involving young students occurs daily. Unfortunately, a culture of bad influence, pressure from college, and prominence of internet use have made it easier for students to succumb to academic cheating. Some celebrities cheat their way to success, prompting a culture of cheating. When behaved properly, famous figures can positively influence the youth. However, the influence is detrimental when the role model sets a poor example. The U.S. News and World Report studied groups that were most likely …show more content…
With the current technology, students can easily copy words and ideas and paste them on to their own work. The popular internet search engine, Google, allows for students to simply type in key phrases and receive instant results of similar papers and articles. When used properly, this tool is extremely useful. However, most students abuse the tool and use it to cheat because it is so much easier to copy and paste a passage than spend an hour writing it. Wikipedia is a main contributor to the increase in plagiarism. There is no single author on Wikipedia, so some students may believe that it is fine to use the work found on there. According to a study by TurnItIn, an online program which detects plagiarism, 8 percent of high school papers and 11 percent of college papers were copied from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the top site that students use to copy content (Glazer). Most teachers inform students of untrustworthy content that Wikipedia offers, yet students still choose to plagiarize. This may be because Wikipedia is usually the first search result that appears on the results page. Wanting quick access to relevant information, students use the information from the site and neglect the reliable sources which they do not bother opening. Most students are aware that they are plagiarizing, but they do not stop themselves because there are external reasons for plagiarism such as stress and desperation. In addition to stealing direct content from website, students also have the option of buying an essay from the internet and turning it in. These “cheat” sites are common among college students, who use the website second most after Wikipedia (Glazer). Although this is not stealing work, it is still cheating because the work was not done by the student. (Talk about cheating and social