Talk:Academic dishonesty/Archive 1

"countries like Japan"
I have an issue with the sentence: "While research on academic dishonesty in other countries is minimal, anecdotal evidence suggests cheating could be even more common in countries like Japan."

What are "countries like Japan"? Do you mean first world South-east Asian countries? If so, it should mention that otherwise in what way can other countries be "like Japan" to be applicable to that sentence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.210.122.24 (talk) 03:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Effects
"A university diploma is an important document in the labor market. Potential employers use a degree as a representation of a graduate's knowledge and ability. However, due to academic dishonesty, not all graduates with the same grades actually did the same work or have the same skills. Thus, when faced with the fact that they do not know which graduates are skilled and which are the "lemons" (see The Market for Lemons), employers must pay all graduates based on the quality of the average graduate. Therefore, the more students who cheat, getting by without achieving the required skills or learning, the lower the quality of the average graduate of a school, and thus the less employers are willing to pay a new hire from that school. Because of this reason, all students, even those that do not cheat themselves, are negatively affected by academic misconduct."

This entire paragraph is without citation and much of it is highly speculative. Even if there was no cheating, random differences, such as ability to retain knowledge and other types of natural ability, will always result in differences in knowledge and skills. I doubt if somehow cheating was totally abolished, pay for recent graduates would change. Due to the reasons mentioned above, workers are always paid based on the quality of the average graduate, it has nothing to do with cheating any more than variation in other factors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.245.125.179 (talk) 02:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Professorial misconduct
Proselytism, propaganda, biases, prejudices on part of any professor, and in this case ucla professors, is not misconduct according to ucla's general catalog (Appendix A: Faculty Code of Conduct).

While intentional dissemination of information by way of propaganda could be considered "dishonesty," there were no examples of dissemination; hence, there were no examples of propaganda. Making statements about dislike towards Bush or Capitalism is not dissemination by itself. Dissemination would have to include trying to hide facts, which is very difficult to do without control of many outlets of mass media.

Again, proselytism is not fraud, misconduct, nor dishonest. In fact, it may very well be classified as rhetoric or persuasion, and that is what college courses mostly practice -- rhetoric.

The following is most of what i took out of the article:
 * In early 2006, UCLA's Bruin Standard newspaper documented professorial misconduct consisting of academic propaganda. Mary Corey, UCLA history professor, instructed her class, "Capitalism isn't a lie on purpose. It's just a lie," she continued, "(Capitalists) are swine. . . . They're bastard people." In another instance, professor Andrew Hewitt, chairman of UCLA's Department of Germanic Languages, instructed his class, "Bush is a moron, a simpleton and an idiot.", and that "American consumerism is a very unique thing; I don't think anyone else lusts after money in such a greedy fashion." Another example consists of Rod Swanson, an economics professor at UCLA, who told his class, "The United States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish country in the world."


 * The Bruin Alumni Association caused quite a stir when it offered to pay students for recordings of classroom proselytizing. The UCLA administration threatened legal action against the group. Some professors labeled the Bruin Alumni Association's actions as McCarthyism and attacks on academic freedom.

If you read the article, you would notice that the author of the article never defines nor cites any definition of "professorial misconduct," he or she simply states examples and then defines whatever those examples are to be whatever he is arguing for them to be. However, careful and universial definitions, such ucla's definition of misconduct, are needed for that article's author's argument to be sound. In fact, I consider this whole argument by that author and putting that into this article as more misleading than any of the quotes from that article. 10:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Mostly USA
Why is this article mostly referencing to American schools? I am sure there are other examples or facts about academic dishonesty around the world.201.230.215.207 03:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Frankly it's because I've only ever read American publications about the subject. I'm sure other countries' research in education includes studies of cheating behavior, but I've never read it, especially cuz I only speak English. Redzuny 05:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Referencing format
There is a problem with the referencing format to this page. Many of the references are only a name and incomplete so there is no way of verifying the information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.194.16.60 (talk) 03:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

The footnotes here are simply following the standard technique of only including the name and page number of a reference to a work that has already been cited in full. Thus, if you want to find the full citation for a footnote with just a name and page number, simply look at the earlier references.Redzuny 18:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

FYI: Wikipedia recommends not using ibid for citations, but instead Footnotes. Since anyone can edit the page, the ibid may end up referring to the wrong citation. See also ibid. panda 16:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Academic dishonesty: students vs tutors
The article implies that only students commit academic dishonesty.

There are a lot of cases where tutors (professors in the US) are dishonest in their work. I don't have time to find a lot of sources, but most examples are related to the publication of research papers, including data fabrication (i.e. making up experimental results) and self plagiarism (i.e. submitting substantially similar material to multiple publishers without acknowledging the sources).

Teaching related examples include using teaching materials without permission and fabricating test results. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.194.16.60 (talk) 03:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

It's my understanding that academic dishonesty, at least according to the literature, can only occur when a person is being evaluated for a grade. Thus, while a teacher might commit academic dishonesty by helping a student cheat, a professor plagiarizing in his book would be something else, intellectual dishonesty perhaps. Redzuny 18:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * From our own first sentence - "Academic dishonesty or academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise." Publishing a paper is an academic exercise, and if one plagiarise or fabricate results, it's most definitely constitute academic dishonesty. KTC 12:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Publishing a book isn't an academic exercise unless you're doing it to receive a degree, an exercise is something that you would normally receive a grade for, like a test or paper. The problem with defining it like that is that there are lots of quizzes and papers and such that aren't graded. 69.138.185.29 (talk) 22:12, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Positive effects of academic dishonesty
The following contribution by an anonymous editor was most likely taken out of context. Until someone can corroborate, it has been removed from the article:

"There is a possibility that academic dishonesty can have positive effects on students as well. Those who only cheat as a form of laziness and not as a way of avoiding learning can benefit immensely from the extra time saved. Furthermore, academic dishonesty provides a stepping stone to reaching institutions for higher education, such as colleges and universities. Provided it does not become a habit, academic dishonesty can have some mild positive effects on students, boosting their self-esteem. "

–panda 17:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

historical examples section
I removed this section because it was basically a "trivia" section under another name (see WP:TRIVIA), and each of the three examples had significant problems that I did not think rewriting would fix. Moreover, the value of a "historical examples" section seems to me, at best, to be slight, and at worst, it is just a list of trivia. If any of these are truly useful as examples, I believe they should be incorporated in a short reference in the text itself ("blah blah blah about particular type of academic dishonesty. For example, the University of Virginia...") but with much greater brevity than in the current section.

Problems with the "examples": The first example, UVA, was a rather overly specific example of discipline; it didn't shed any light on standards or types of academic dishonesty. It was impossible to analyze it: was this unusually harsh? A momentary blip in enforcement? Or what? The second example, William Shakespeare, was basically pure speculation, and erroneously linked copyright law to plagiarism. The third example, MLK, was basically the same thing that MLK critics have tried to insert repeatedly in Wikipedia. It's in the MLK article itself, the last time I saw, which therefore links here; this article is therefore linked to the King article by a "what links here" search -- so the connections desired by people are still there. However, the material is overly detailed, does not help the reader understand what constitutes plagiarism, disciplinary practices, or so on; it simply talks about the King incident (in considerable detail) but doesn't help the reader understand the point of this example.

Since the entire section was riddled with speculation, inaccuracy, unnecessary detail, and lacked utility to the reader, I deleted it. Before anybody reinstates it, can we discuss the point of this section here? --Lquilter (talk) 17:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

"Deprecated" form of cheating?
FTA: "This form of cheating—though deprecated—could conceivably be called altruistic."

Why does the article call this form of cheating deprecated? That makes no sense at all. You can't stop a student who has just taken a test from talking about it with a friend who hasn't. Some teachers never write unique tests for different groups, and this method will never get old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.201.135.92 (talk) 18:22, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Define plagiarism
I make a distinction between plagiarism and cheating because I believe it is important. Plagiarism is theft, a crime against the owner of an idea or words. The issue with plagiarism is between the thief and the owner, not between the thief and some third party. The owner is the victim.

We largely miss the point by putting plagiarism on a sliding scale between cheating and derivative discourse. Plagiarism is (or should be) a Big Issue in the academy because thoughts and ideas are the scholar’s stock in trade; if another person steals them, they are appropriating another’s currency, their very mental processes, perhaps their life’s work. At bottom, that’s all an academic has. That's why it's so bad.

If a student buys a paper and presents it for credit, it is garden variety cheating, not plagiarism. If one steals a paper and presents it for credit, it is also plagiarism, but it is still just cheating as far as the marker is concerned, a question of credibility. In that case the student would also have an issue of plagiarism with the idea's owner, but it should matter little to the course prof. We have it backwards; we think that plagiarism is something bad done to course professors and to the University by dishonest students. In reality, it’s something bad done to original writers and thinkers by dishonest students.

The sources I find tend to include theft as a prerequisite to the sin.

Canadian Oxford says “take and use. . . as one’s own.” (plagiarist) From the Latin _plagiarius_ kidnapper from _plagium_ a kidnapping, from Greek _plagion_.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms calls it “the theft of ideas. . . or of written passages or works, where these are passed off as one's own work without acknowledgment of their true origin; or a piece of writing thus stolen.”

OED “the wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another.” [L. _plagirius_ one who abducts the child or slave of another, a kidnapper; a seducer; also (Mart. i. 53. 9) a literary thief. Cf. late L. _plagium_ kidnapping, _plagire_ to kidnap. So F. _plagiaire_ (16th c.) a plagiarist.]

Black's Law Dictionary "the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of this writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one's own mind"

Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged "to steal and pass off as one's own [the ideas or words of another]," to "use [a created production] without crediting the source," or "to commit literary theft," to "present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source."

The key words are “wrongful appropriation or purloining.” The “publication as one’s own” comes into it because you cannot steal it without re-publishing it. (You could copy it down and hide it in a drawer, but that’s not stealing, that’s copying it down and hiding it in a drawer) In other words, you can't steal it without using it, but the crime is the stealing, not the using. That is, you can't use it without stealing it, so using is just the proof of theft--the possession of stolen goods, so to speak.

Whether my roommate gives me last year's term paper and I use it as my own this year, or I steal my roommate's term paper and use it as my own, it is of no difference to my prof; I have cheated equally in both cases. However, in one case I have also committed plagiarism against my roommate, in the other I have not. Johnroller (talk) 21:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

What about dishonest editing in Wikipedia?
Should it be reported in this article? Or Wikipedia does not qualify as "academic"? Ninguém (talk) 16:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Taking "academic steroids" gives non-ADHD students an unfair advantage over other non-ADHD students
Some universities are divided on the issue, and if taking adderall constitutes "unfair advantage" and thus each university's dean of students office rules on everything on a case-by-case basis. There has been a rumor of a kid at a different school who got 1 semester of academic probation, and the other got a slap on the wrist. 67.77.168.127 (talk) 07:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Ghostwriting
Editors here may find the following publication useful: LeadSongDog come howl!  17:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Increased plagiarism post-Internet?
Recent edits have repeatedly added and restored a section asserting that "Discussions on the subjects of student plagiarism have been increasing." The section cites these three sources as support:


 * http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/internationalisation/ISL_Plagiarism
 * http://www.aare.edu.au/99pap/ush99233.htm
 * http://www.e-assessmentlive2009.org.uk/pastConferences/2004/proceedings/Sampson.pdf

I am one of the editors who has removed the material and I did so because those sources are insufficient to support the claim. The first source is of unclear origin, doesn't identify its author, and doesn't directly address the issue except in one offhand, unsupported statement. The second source appears to be a peer-reviewed conference paper but it doesn't address the issue at all. Finally, the third source is similar to the first as its unclear on its origin and only addresses the issue very briefly and with the scantest of supporting evidence.

It's possible that plagiarism has increased with the advent of the Internet and the Web. But these sources are insufficient to support such a claim. ElKevbo (talk) 13:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting discussions on this topic at the recent bi-annual plagiarism conference in the UK. The section could quite easily be expanded to stand as a more nuanced piece so that it picks up on the different reasons why we might indeed conclude that plagiarism has risen as a result of the Internet. There is a hint at paper mills in the first paper mentioned and there has been a great deal of research in this area over the past few years. As it stands the short sections is an adequate opening but can be expanded. Marion margolis (talk) 18:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Ethical causes
From Ethical causes: "[A] student who decides to engage in cheating behavior, before she can cheat she must overcome her own conscience. [...] For instance, students who personally do not have a moral problem with academic misconduct can cheat guilt-free." Isn't this a bit contradictory? Ttias (talk) 15:18, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

cheating by administrators
not sure if this goes here, or is a link to a separate article, but why is cheating by administrators not listed ? I refer speficically to the effort by principals and teachers to raise test scores dishonestly; this seems to be driven by test score based pay raises and promotion practices. I am aware of at least two serious cases: Houston under Rod Paige (ironically, bush's 1s sec ed) Atlanta (article NY Times today 20 Feb) I don't pay to much attention to this stuff, so if I know of two, there are probably a lot more. cinnamon colbert — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.51.31 (talk) 18:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * That's cheating in an economic context, not academic. Better scores = better funding. The academies are just the pieces in that game. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

examples
From Time Immemorial, J Peters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Time_Immemorial Arming America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arming_America Reinhoff Rogart http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.51.31 (talk) 02:03, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

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Confusion between fabrication and falsification
The article currently conflates fabrication with falsification, but they are two completely separate things. Falsification is tweaking or omitting the results of an experiment. Fabrication is making up results from imagined experiments that never took place.

See for example, , etc.

The confusion appears several times in the article, so for now I'm just bringing this up and hoping someone involved in the article can express his opinion and/or fix this. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 13:16, 27 April 2017 (UTC)


 * My initial impression is that this is hair-splitting. One area of difficulty is that falsification has another meaning — to demonstrate the falseness of a proposition or hypothesis — so some writers may choose to avoid using it in this context as potentially confusing. One could argue that any data or results that are not in correspondence with actual experiments are fabricated while still being able to distinguish the extreme of fabricated from whole cloth, i.e. results attributed to experiments that were never done.


 * Those two links are evidence that your view has a certain currency, though.  &mdash; jmcgnh  (talk) (contribs)  20:07, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

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'Demographic and personal causes' - unfinished concept
Hello everyone, the bottom of the paragraph 'Demographic and personal causes' exists an unfinished hyperlink and a reference to a Guardian article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VN28 (talk • contribs) 10:54, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks; for reporting; I have fixed this. A test edit/piece of vandalism broke this last September, it turns out.  Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  18:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Question
Shouldn't lying (to a professor, for example, as the example below illustrates) not be considered academic dishonesty as well by all institutions in the world? I mean, we all heard the expression "Honesty is the best policy" at some point in our lives, right? Well, I'm surprised academic dishonesty doesn't cover lying, because, if a certain student (let's assume the male gender here and call him X) lies to his professor (let's assume the female gender here and call her Mrs. Y) by saying he has prepared for Mrs. Y's class by doing his homework from the previous day when the truth is he hasn't, I think X's grade on Mrs. Y's subject should be dropped by one full letter grade, or even better, X should get an F. --Fandelasketchup (talk) 00:13, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
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