Bob Doyle, Columnist I recently watched a web presentation on
plagiarism that was an eye opener. Plagiarism is when someone
claims someone else’s work as their own. A more general term is
academic cheating which includes getting exam questions in
advance illicitly, copying homework answers, copying from others
on a test, and submitting someone else’s paper as their own. Why
do many students cheat? The presentation answered with a Venn
diagram with three overlapping circles labeled: pressured,
unmotivated and unable to do the work. The presenter showed
statistics indicating that cheating is widespread from middle
school through college. To make it more depressing, some
students who feel that cheating is morally wrong, do it anyway!
When I write a column, I always try to present some kind of
corrective action to a problem. My general approach is — Make
cheating more difficult than learning the material on your own.
How can that be done? There are three big areas where actions
can be taken by an instructor. Some