The Pacer

Issue date: 10/7/08 Section: Campus News

Media Credit: Amanda Carr Students find innovative ways to cheat if desperate enough.

With increases in technology and communication as well as laziness in many students, professors have had to continue evolving their tactics when trying to prevent cheating in the classroom.

"I don't know the reason, but everywhere I have taught students always feel the need to cheat," said David Coffey, associate professor of History and co-dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts.

"With the large history classes, it's hard to detect every student that tries to cheat, but I think professors are getting smarter at detecting academic dishonesty."

Coffey said that even though cell phones and PDAs have encouraged cheating, he still sees many classic ways of cheating such as cheat sheets and wandering eyes.

"After tests and classes, you'll usually find a couple of cheat sheets lying around or wadded up in trash cans," Coffey said.

"But one of the more recent cheating attempts that I've seen in the history department included a student writing the answers on a black desk with pencil before the test. Since the lead was dark, the answers could only be seen at a certain angle," Coffey said. "But the student was caught and given an automatic zero on the exam."

Even though these types of cheating are still common, Coffey says that plagiarism is the most common form of cheating that he has seen.

"Plagiarism is one of the stupidest ways that students cheat," Coffey said. "Plagiarism is like robbing a bank and then leaving an address and information behind at the scene. It's very easy to detect a plagiarized paper."

Beth Powell, assistant professor of English, views plagiarism the same way as Coffey.

"The plagiarism that I see is usually either blatant or accidental," Powell said. "Blatant plagiarism attempts that I've seen include copying papers and recycling papers from other classes. These recycled papers usually don't follow the subject matter and are pretty easy to sniff out. Accidental plagiarism usually includes missing or incorrect citations and structural mistakes."

To help prevent plagiarism in her classes, Powell meets regularly with her students during the drafting process.

"If I am with them through every step of the writing process, it makes plagiarism very hard," Powell said.

Coffey agrees.

"These students are the future and when I see cheating going on it not only makes me furious, it makes me question the culture that they are living in," Coffey said. "They live in a culture that almost celebrates cheating. In areas such as sports and politics, cheating seems to be rewarded."

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