Plagiarism and integrity - Essay Example

s Section/# Academic Integrity/Academic Honesty Academic integrity is a broad term that involves many aspects of thebehavior that a student represents within the learning experience. Yet, broadly speaking, academic integrity refers to the degree to which a student represents his/her own work and the work of others; either by citing them appropriately, carelessly referencing, or outright plagiarizing another person’s ideas or thoughts. This type of cheating not only oftentimes cheats the system and gives the student a grade that he/she did not deserve, it also cheats the student; due to the fact that they do not learn the material that have plagiarized or been dishonest concerning their level of knowledge.

In short, the education that they are paying for and the years of their life that they are sacrificing are ultimately wasted if this is a habitual trait that will be exhibited again and again. Yet, there are many reasons for why low academic integrity are noted within various individuals. As such, the following analysis will briefly present some of these reasons and causes and help the reader to come to a more informed understanding for why academic integrity is so vitally important and what motivates individuals to cheat the system and to cheat their own education.

One of the core reasons for why individuals display a low level of academic integrity has to do with the fact that they are simply lazy to learn the required material or perform the required task (East and Donnelly 3). Although it is true that laziness is not a vital or fundamental flaw, allowing it to dictate how one displays levels of honesty or academic integrity is most certainly a core flaw. Another reason for why low levels of academic integrity are exhibited has to do with an individual that might have a very low level of familiarity or comfort with a given subject.

For instance, an international student that struggles with English as a second language may be tempted to plagiarize as a means of performing a very difficult task easily (Mahmud and Bretig 438). Last but not least, an individual may be tempted to exhibit a low level of academic integrity in the eventuality that they have put an assignment off to the very last minute; so much so that the only recourse for accomplishing it within the time period in question is to cheat and present someone else’s work as their own (Spain 154).

In essence, there are many reasons for why students cheat; however, none of them are more noble than another and none of them can be excused. As such, it is necessary to ensure that all assignments are begun before the deadline, that laziness is kept in check , and that if a particular subject or course is extremely difficult that proper time is allotted to it so that the student can be sure that they are able to submit their own work as a means of fulfilling the requirements rather than giving in to the temptation of leveraging academic dishonesty as a means of easily fulfilling a requirement.

Works CitedEast, Julianne, and Lisa Donnelly. "Taking Responsibility For Academic Integrity."Journal Of University Teaching And Learning Practice 9.3 (2012): ERIC. Web. 1 May 2014.Mahmud, Saadia, and Tracey Bretag. " Students And Academic Integrity: ‘Its About Good Research Training’." Journal Of Higher Education Policy & Management 35.4 (2013): 432-443. Business Source Complete. Web. 1 May 2014.Spain, Judith Winters, and Marcel Marie Robles. "Academic Integrity Policy: The Journey." Business Communication Quarterly 74.2 (2011): 151-159.

 Business Source Complete. Web. 1 May 2014.