Honor Codes Dbq

Honor codes/honor systems serve as a reminder to students to (especially) not cheat/plagarize. However, just how effective they are is up for debate. In my opinion, honor codes should be eliminated. Based on the documents given, they are excessive, ineffective, and sometimes extreme, I have concluded. To begin with, I see honor codes as excessive; it is a known rule not to cheat. The handbook states it. An honor code does not change anything. Moreover, an honor code should be placing blame on bystanders. I agree with the students in Source B, who disapproved of a rule in the code penalizing them for not reporting another student’s wrongdoing; it is not their responsibility, let alone would there be an accurate way of determining if a student did know of any wrongdoing. Vangelli says that disciplining action was no longer a part of the proposal, followed by criticism for having to write on every assignment that the work is original. Again, that is excessive. There is no need to ensure the grader that no plagarism took place. This also creates a culture of distrust. …show more content…
Take the feedback loop told in Source C. “If a student enters a college with mostly cheater types,” Dirmeyer writes, “then the costs of cheating are low, and the benefits are high. Therefore, an honor code would not do anything to prevent this if that is the culture of the school, regardless of whether or not there is an established honor code, as documented in Source D. The University of Virginia has an honor code, which must be written on every assignment, but that did not change the attitudes of 157 students who were caught cheating. These students had copied anywhere between some of their early work to a third of somebody else’s work, all while promising to have not cheated. It is clear that the honor code is regarded as merely some sentence-speaking