2008 Woodie Awards
Cheating made easy?
David Penner
Issue date: 4/26/06 Section: News
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For many Central students, the end of a semester is a stressful time.
Projects, papers and the anxiety of trying to finish on a positive note all seem to mount as the semester draws to an end.
That end can cause some students to act irrationally and go to extremes that could ultimately cause a student to receive a failing grade in class - or worse, expulsion.
Students sometimes turn to using someone else's work and passing it off as their own - also known as plagiarism.
"I think plagiarism occurs because of time and work pressure," said John Sheets, director of Central's history and anthropology department. "A lot of students don't just go to school. Many of them are working jobs, and their time becomes very compressed."
Sheets said ideally, students should begin working on projects as soon as they get them, but do not because of time issues.
"Projects are supposed to be started when they are given," he said. "It is a slow process, but sometimes that process is interrupted by outside factors that can cause a student to put off the project for a while."
"There are times when it won't happen at all during a semester," Sheets said. "In the very next semester, though, you could deal with three or four cases of it."
Robert Yates, professor of English, said it is something that happens a lot when students first arrive at Central.
"It happens quite a bit in the lower-level classes, and most of it is unintentional," he said. "It tends to disappear once students start to reach the higher-level classes."
In today's virtual world, students who are pressed for time can go to a search engine on the Internet, and type in the key words "term papers."
By doing a "Google" search with these terms, a student is assured of about 167 million Web sites dedicated to providing them with term papers. These papers range from theses that one must pay for to free run-of-the-mill topics.
It is even possible to narrow the search to fit specific topics based on major. For instance, a journalism major can go to one site, narrow the topic down to "journalism" and get reports about topics ranging from "History & The Media" to "Dick Schapp, Journalist."
Projects, papers and the anxiety of trying to finish on a positive note all seem to mount as the semester draws to an end.
That end can cause some students to act irrationally and go to extremes that could ultimately cause a student to receive a failing grade in class - or worse, expulsion.
Students sometimes turn to using someone else's work and passing it off as their own - also known as plagiarism.
"I think plagiarism occurs because of time and work pressure," said John Sheets, director of Central's history and anthropology department. "A lot of students don't just go to school. Many of them are working jobs, and their time becomes very compressed."
Sheets said ideally, students should begin working on projects as soon as they get them, but do not because of time issues.
"Projects are supposed to be started when they are given," he said. "It is a slow process, but sometimes that process is interrupted by outside factors that can cause a student to put off the project for a while."
"There are times when it won't happen at all during a semester," Sheets said. "In the very next semester, though, you could deal with three or four cases of it."
Robert Yates, professor of English, said it is something that happens a lot when students first arrive at Central.
"It happens quite a bit in the lower-level classes, and most of it is unintentional," he said. "It tends to disappear once students start to reach the higher-level classes."
In today's virtual world, students who are pressed for time can go to a search engine on the Internet, and type in the key words "term papers."
By doing a "Google" search with these terms, a student is assured of about 167 million Web sites dedicated to providing them with term papers. These papers range from theses that one must pay for to free run-of-the-mill topics.
It is even possible to narrow the search to fit specific topics based on major. For instance, a journalism major can go to one site, narrow the topic down to "journalism" and get reports about topics ranging from "History & The Media" to "Dick Schapp, Journalist."
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