Plagiarism: No big deal?
COMMENTARY
Melissa Christensen

It’s late. Really late. So late that even the late-night drive-throughs can’t get you the chalupa you’re craving. And it’s due. That huge, ugly, massive, overwhelmingly daunting term paper that has been on the syllabus for well over a month is due in a few hours.

Though a resistance may be present at first, the ticking of the clock is soon replaced by the clicking of the mouse. Click, copy, paste. Click, copy, paste. Like a tribal dance welcoming the sunrise, the rhythm accelerates until the word count is sufficient and the page requirements met. Finally, the printer spews forth the tangled remains of intelligent thought, little of it original, and, more than likely, none of it attributed.

But at least it’s done. And no one will find out, right? Besides, even if they do, who’s it going to hurt?

Nobody, as many college students would tell you, according to a recent study by Rutgers University Marketing Professor Donald McCabe. The self-reporting survey of 23 university campuses found that nearly 40 percent of undergraduate students admit to cut-and-paste Internet plagiarism. If that figure doesn’t arch your brows, take note of the expanded survey answer: Half of those cheaters considered their behavior either trivial or not cheating at all.

Something is seriously amiss when supposedly intelligent, achieving individuals can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. With the Enron and Jayson Blair scandals still fresh wounds in the nation’s system of ethics, it would be easy to blame the frequently-targeted and intangible “society” for the decline in values.

But it essentially comes down to an individual’s decision between wrong and right: Either you skip down the easy road and forgo the learning intended by the assignment or you follow the road map of the educational experience and work your butt off to get the assignment done.

The decision to cheat is an informed, involved process. The student weighs the risk over the consequences, and all too often, as McCabe’s study shows, the risk wins out.

Cheating is not a victimless crime. Cheaters who graduate in part with grades earned underhandedly devalue the worth of the degrees earned through honesty and hard work. Their failures in the workplace reflect poorly upon the university and its graduates. TCU journalism students still have to worry about being connected to a recent graduate who made up quotations for an Associated Press story.

The Student Government Association is in the process of writing an honor code for the university. As they do so, they ought to consider how best to enforce the value of academic integrity. Punishment for violators needs to be swift, severe and publicly known. As is done at Stanford University, all cheating and plagiarism offenses should be published with the ensuing punishment listed.

You must also stand up for yourself and the quality of your education. Report suspected cheating. Let your student government representatives and your peers know that cheating is unacceptable. After all, your reputation is on the line too.

Melissa Christensen is a junior news-editorial journalism major from Grand Island, Neb.