Remember those days when we were kids and cheated over the silliest things but never got caught? I do. I remember well how I procrastinated until the day of the test.
My best friend and I would share exams, each hoping the other had the answers to the hard questions. However, maturity set in and so did our consciences. Most people grow out of cheating since elementary and high school, right? Most of us know how to look away from the person to the left or right of us when taking that excruciatingly hard test, or turn down an exam with all the answers, right?
Wrong! “On most campuses, over 75 percent of students admit to some cheating. In a 1999 survey of 2,100 students on 21 campuses across the country, about one-third of the participating students admitted to serious test cheating and half admitted to one or more instances of serious cheating on written assignments,” according to the Center for Academic Integrity. Isn’t that sad?
Sitting down in Marillac Cafeteria enjoying an interesting conversation with friends, a young man caught my eyes. No, it was not because of his good looks or his sharp clothes. It was the cautious manner in which he passed by the table. Without so much as glancing at us, he slyly flung a business card on our table walked away. The card was titled A&B Term Paper Specialists.
“Paper Specialists?” I thought. “What kind of business is this?” Then it dawned on me that maybe these specialists were not really specialists in a positive sense of the word. The card boasts that there is no job too big or too small. This business specializes in dissertations, thesis papers, homework, exams, and statistics, just to name a few.
Out of curiosity I was determined to find what their business was all about. A&B Paper Specialists provide clients with custom term papers, resumes, entrance essays, or dissertations. The product they sell (everything costs something) is supposed to be used for reference purposes only. The research should be used to help guide you through your own assignment. In order to make sure that their backs are covered, the A&B Paper Specialists enclose a disclaimer warning students against the use of written material as their own work, an act of plagiarism.
It is businesses like these or friends of friends who work freelance, that foster cheating on campuses. If you disagree, ask yourself if you would be tempted to steal money left on someone’s desk without ever seeing it.
Henry Ward Beecher said it best: all men are tempted. It is, no doubt, easy to consider buying an assignment that is due in a few days.
One may have the right intentions when purchasing the material. However, laziness kicks in and one may say, “The teacher won’t notice it is not my work anyway.” Rationalizing our motives and then justifying them in our minds does not make cheating right. Academic integrity goes a long way. If you can’t be trusted in school with your work, how can you be trusted in the real world?
Am I saying that A&B and their ilk are evil and they should rot in Hades? Absolutely not! We could take a little more pride in our work and not give in to temptations that could compromise our academic integrity. If we really need some type of guidance, there is no better source than the professor who gives the assignment.
